XML Quickstart

XML Quickstart is a five-day course introducing the concepts of XML, including the document analysis process, XML syntax and some real-world examples of its use.

Intended Audience

XML QuickStart is designed to be an introduction for those entering the XML world. Everyone from managers to content creators can benefit from this course. This course emphasizes technical aspects such as syntax and XSLT code.

Course Format

This five-day course consists of lectures, class discussions, written exercises and group activities. This class includes a week-long project and hands-on experience with XML software.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course.

Course Description

XML QuickStart explores XML and its related standards by taking participants through a simple XML project, beginning with requirements and sample documents. This simple, guided project will take students through the complete set of steps necessary to design and create a working XML-based process: developing an XML DTD, writing schema code, creating XML content and creating an XSLT stylesheet that transforms their XML document into XHTML for viewing in an Internet browser.

It begins with an overview of the role of XML and its relationship to various related standards. After the overview, the course drills down into the actual syntax of XML documents. It covers the basic syntax of a well-formed XML document: elements and attributes. The course continues with a day of data modeling using XML's built-in schema mechanism, the Document Type Definition. The course gives an overview of data modeling methodology and allows students to apply the methodology to a group project. Next students learn the DTD syntax for element, attribute and entity declarations. The students apply this knowledge to build a Document Type Definition that will be the basis for later work. This DTD is tested in an interactive XML editing environment. This portion of the course concludes with an introduction to schema syntax, and the students practice what they have learned by writing a schema for their data model.

The remainder of the course allows students to explore other parts of the XML family of standards. First they will learn about the Cascading Style Sheet language and the XSLT transformation language to display their XML documents in a web browser. In order to use XSLT effectively, students will first learn enough XPath to be able to create matching patterns. Then they will learn to write XSLT templates for converting an XML source into XHTML. Finally, they will apply these skills to their project, creating a rendered version of their sample documents.

The course concludes with a brief overview of the concepts and approaches used for linking and manipulating XML: XPointer, XLink, DOM and SAX. Finally, the instructor will provide pointers to the books, tools and websites that can help make XML software development easier.

Course Outline

Course Introduction

The XML Information Outlook

• Ideas behind XML
• XML mechanics overviews
• Project Activity: Identify Components
• XML processing overview
• XML and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
• Benefits of XML
• XML environment

The Well-formed XML Document

• XML Syntax
• Well-formed XML: Elements
• Well-formed XML: Attributes
• Troubleshooting XML
• Project Activity: Create an XML Version

XML Namespaces

• Namespace Syntax
• Project Activity: Create a Default Namespace

XML Information Set

The Valid XML Document

• Valid XML: the value of formal data models
  • Why the data model matters
  • Do you need valid XML?
  • How to get valid XML
  • DTDs and Schemas
• Data Model Design
  • The data model design process
  • Recording a data model
  • Project Activity: Creating a Data Model
• Formalizing a Data Model: DTD syntax
  • Key concept: Declarations
  • Elements
  • Attributes
  • Entities
  • DOCTYPE declaration
  • Project Activity: Writing a DTD
• Formalizing a Data Model: Schema syntax
  • Key concept: Type
  • Simple and complex types
  • Schema syntax
  • Elements
  • Attributes
  • Scoping
  • Attaching a schema to a document
  • Project Activity: Writing a Schema

The Good-Looking XML Document

• Rendering XML . . . on the web and beyond
• CSS: Cascading Style Sheets
• XSL: Extensible Stylesheet Language
  • XSLT + XSL FO = XSL
• Addressing content and structure: XPath
• XSLT syntax
• Designing a transformation
• Project Activity: Writing an XSLT stylesheet

The Well-connected XML Document

• Establishing Connections
• Project Activity: Define an XLink

The Useful XML Document

• Programming with XML
• SAX: Simple API for XML
• DOM: Document Object Model

The Practical XML Document

Learning More, Going On From Here