presentation 6: introduction to xml and related technologies

Presentation 6:

Introduction to XML and related technologies

Ingeniørhøjskolen i ÅrhusSlide 2 af 31

Outline

• Why an XML presentation?• W3C & legacy of XML – ultra short• XML markup and Namespaces• DTD’s• XML Schemas• DOM/SAX• The SOAP connection


Why do we need an XML presentation?

• Because SOAP, WSDL & UDDI is based on XML technologies

• Important to understand how the API’s work – Parsing mechanisms

• DOM• SAX• Why its slow ;)


W3C & the legacy of XML

• World Wide Consortium– Founded 1994 to lead the WWW into the future– For standardizations on the Internet– First Chairman: Tim Berners-Lee – founder of HTML & HTTP (or

World Wide Web as we know it)– Run by Chairman, Director & Staff– Boards of members submits proposals and work to formulate– Ensures standardization of WWW technologies

• Like: XHTML, XML, XSL, CSS, SOAP, WAP etc.• Members: Microsoft, IBM, SUN, Oracle and many others

– http://www.w3c.org• Legacy:

– Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) • http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/sgmldecl.html• HTML has the same legacy - in fact / tightly coupled


XML markup

• eXtended Markup Language• XML based on SGML (subset of)• Like SGML for structure not layout (as HTML)• XML targets the Internet – but is also being used

for application exchange formats (Open Office, XMI) – CSVs

• XML is an W3C Recommendation– http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml

• Structure decided by DTD or Schema (more later)• Wide spread support for XML (hype agtig)


Presenting XML documents

• Examples fetched from DEITEL• First we will look at a standalone XML document

and its components (elements)– Note: XML document needs to be Wellformed

Article.xml

1 <?xml version = "1.0"?>2 3 4 5 6 <article>7 8 <title>Simple XML</title>9 10 <date>September 19, 2001</date>11 12 <author>13 <firstName>Tem</firstName>14 <lastName>Nieto</lastName>15 </author>16 17 <summary>XML is pretty easy.</summary>18 19 <content>Once you have mastered XHTML, XML is easily20 learned. You must remember that XML is not for21 displaying information but for managing information.22 </content>23 24 </article>

Optional XML declaration.

Element article is the root element.

Elements title, date, author, summary and content are child elements of article.


Browser displaying XML (unformatted)

IE5.5 displaying article.xml.


Use of XML Namespaces

• XML namespaces used to avoid naming conflicts• When several different elements are involved• <book> isnt always a book• Keyword ”xmlns”

Namespace.xml

1 <?xml version = "1.0"?>2 3 4 5 6 <text:directory xmlns:text = "urn:deitel:textInfo"7 xmlns:image = "urn:deitel:imageInfo">8 9 <text:file filename = "book.xml">10 <text:description>A book list</text:description>11 </text:file>12 13 <image:file filename = "funny.jpg">14 <image:description>A funny picture</image:description>15 <image:size width = "200" height = "100"/>16 </image:file>17 18 </text:directory>

Keyword xmlns creates two namespace prefixes, text and image.

URIs ensure that a namespace is unique.

Defaultnamespace.xml

1 <?xml version = "1.0"?>2 3 4 5 6 <directory xmlns = "urn:deitel:textInfo"7 xmlns:image = "urn:deitel:imageInfo">8 9 <file filename = "book.xml">10 <description>A book list</description>11 </file>12 13 <image:file filename = "funny.jpg">14 <image:description>A funny picture</image:description>15 <image:size width = "200" height = "100"/>16 </image:file>17 18 </directory>

Default namespace.

Element file uses the default namespace.

Element file uses the namespace prefix image.


DTDs

• Document Type Definition• Extended Backus-Naur Form• Defines how an XML document is structured

– Required elements– Nesting of elements– Does not define types or behaviour

• If DTD is used – some parsers can decide if XML document is “valid” – which is more than just “wellformed”

Letter.dtd

1 2 3 4 <!ELEMENT letter ( contact+, salutation, paragraph+, 5 closing, signature )>6 7 <!ELEMENT contact ( name, address1, address2, city, state,8 zip, phone, flag )>9 <!ATTLIST contact type CDATA #IMPLIED>10 11 <!ELEMENT name ( #PCDATA )>12 <!ELEMENT address1 ( #PCDATA )>13 <!ELEMENT address2 ( #PCDATA )>14 <!ELEMENT city ( #PCDATA )>15 <!ELEMENT state ( #PCDATA )>16 <!ELEMENT zip ( #PCDATA )>17 <!ELEMENT phone ( #PCDATA )>18 <!ELEMENT flag EMPTY>19 <!ATTLIST flag gender (M | F) "M">20 21 <!ELEMENT salutation ( #PCDATA )>22 <!ELEMENT closing ( #PCDATA )>23 <!ELEMENT paragraph ( #PCDATA )>24 <!ELEMENT signature ( #PCDATA )>

The ELEMENT element type declaration defines the rules for element letter.

The plus sign (+) occurrence indicator specifies that the DTD allows one or more occurrences of an element. (2 contacs in our example)

The contact element definition specifies that element contact contains child elements name, address1, address2, city, state, zip, phone and flag— in that order.

Letter.dtd

1 2 3 4 <!ELEMENT letter ( contact+, salutation, paragraph+, 5 closing, signature )>6 7 <!ELEMENT contact ( name, address1, address2, city, state,8 zip, phone, flag )>9 <!ATTLIST contact type CDATA #IMPLIED>10 11 <!ELEMENT name ( #PCDATA )>12 <!ELEMENT address1 ( #PCDATA )>13 <!ELEMENT address2 ( #PCDATA )>14 <!ELEMENT city ( #PCDATA )>15 <!ELEMENT state ( #PCDATA )>16 <!ELEMENT zip ( #PCDATA )>17 <!ELEMENT phone ( #PCDATA )>18 <!ELEMENT flag EMPTY>19 <!ATTLIST flag gender (M | F) "M">20 21 <!ELEMENT salutation ( #PCDATA )>22 <!ELEMENT closing ( #PCDATA )>23 <!ELEMENT paragraph ( #PCDATA )>24 <!ELEMENT signature ( #PCDATA )>

The ATTLIST element type declaration defines an attribute (i.e., type) for the contact element.

Keyword #IMPLIED specifies that if the parser finds a contact element without a type attribute, the parser can choose an arbitrary value for the attribute or ignore the attribute and the document will be valid.

Flag #PCDATA specifies that the element can contain parsed character data (i.e., text).

See letter.xml next page

Letter.xml

1 <?xml version = "1.0"?>2 3 4 5 6 <!DOCTYPE letter SYSTEM "letter.dtd">7 8 <letter>9 10 <contact type = "from">11 <name>John Doe</name>12 <address1>123 Main St.</address1>13 <address2></address2>14 <city>Anytown</city>15 <state>Anystate</state>16 <zip>12345</zip>17 <phone>555-1234</phone>18 <flag gender = "M"/>19 </contact>20 21 <contact type = "to">22 <name>Joe Schmoe</name>23 <address1>Box 12345</address1>24 <address2>15 Any Ave.</address2>25 <city>Othertown</city>26 <state>Otherstate</state>27 <zip>67890</zip>28 <phone>555-4321</phone>29 <flag gender = "M"/>30 </contact>31


Letter.xml

Program Output

32 <salutation>Dear Sir:</salutation>33 34 <paragraph>It is our privilege to inform you about our new35 database managed with XML. This new system allows36 you to reduce the load of your inventory list server by37 having the client machine perform the work of sorting38 and filtering the data.</paragraph>39 <closing>Sincerely</closing>40 <signature>Mr. Doe</signature>41 42 </letter>


Program Output


XML Schemas

• DTD works OK – but– Is in Ex. Backus-Naur Form – why not use XML to describe?– Cannot declare a type to of an element – <amount>hundrede kr</amount>

• Could give problems

• XML Schemas– Use XML to describe the structure of XML documents …– Possible to give type information to XML definitions

• Not supported by all parsers yet• Will live besides DTDs for a while

Book.xsd

1 <?xml version = "1.0"?>2 3 4 5 6 <xsd:schema xmlns:xsd = "http://www.w3.org/2000/10/XMLSchema"7 xmlns:deitel = "http://www.deitel.com/booklist"8 targetNamespace = "http://www.deitel.com/booklist">9 10 <xsd:element name = "books" type = "deitel:BooksType"/>11 12 <xsd:complexType name = "BooksType">13 <xsd:element name = "book" type = "deitel:BookType"14 minOccurs = "1" maxOccurs = "unbounded"/>15 </xsd:complexType>16 17 <xsd:complexType name = "BookType">18 <xsd:element name = "title" type = "xsd:string"/>19 </xsd:complexType>20 21 </xsd:schema>

Namespace URI.Namespace prefix.

Element element defines an element to be included in the XML document structure.

Attributes name and type specify the element’s name and data type, respectively.

Element complexType defines an element type that has a child element named book.Attribute minOccurs specifies that books must

contain a minimum of one book element.

Attribute maxOccurs, with value unbounded specifies that books may have any number of book child elements.

Book.xsd

1 <?xml version = "1.0"?>2 3 4 5 6 <xsd:schema xmlns:xsd = "http://www.w3.org/2000/10/XMLSchema"7 xmlns:deitel = "http://www.deitel.com/booklist"8 targetNamespace = "http://www.deitel.com/booklist">9 10 <xsd:element name = "books" type = "deitel:BooksType"/>11 12 <xsd:complexType name = "BooksType">13 <xsd:element name = "book" type = "deitel:BookType"14 minOccurs = "1" maxOccurs = "unbounded"/>15 </xsd:complexType>16 17 <xsd:complexType name = "BookType">18 <xsd:element name = "title" type = "xsd:string"/>19 </xsd:complexType>20 21 </xsd:schema>

A BookType has an Element named Title of Type “xsd:string” – which is defined at “http://www.w3.org/2000/10/XMLSchema”


How to use XML?

• Need a parser (or a parser API) to access XML (as with CSV)• Two commonly used methods:

– DOM (Document Object Model)• W3C Recommendation• Makes a tree structure representation of an XML document in memory

– SAX (Simple API for XML)• Supported by diff. vendors• Parses document line by line and sends events to subscribers• Needs to parse every time access to XML document is needed

• DOM is better for– Slow to load XML document (need all)– Quick access to random read or update of XML (like WWW browser -

BOM)– Requires a lot of memory (need to hold entire XML in mem)

• SAX is better for– Applications subscribing to certain parts of XML (event subscription)– Slow for random access to XML document (must parse every time)


Hvad er DOM

• DOM: Document Object Model– http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-DOM-Level-2-HTML-2

0030109/

• Hos W3C:– Standard for adgang til strukturerede dokumenter– Core DOM benyttes til XML– HTML DOM benyttes til HTML– Repræsentation af et dokument som et træ af objekter– Giver et ensartet interface på tværs af

programmeringssprog– Programmerings API med interface til bl.a. JavaScript


DOM træstruktur

• Træstruktur i et XML dokument• … eller et HTML

document

… table

tbdoy

…

… …

tr trtr

td tdtd

tekst

<table> <tbody> <tr> <td> tekst </td>….


Example – using DOM on Article.xml

• We have looked at Article.xml• We Will:

– Look at the Article.xml document again– Look at the Tree Structure formed by loading it into a

DOM– Use JavaScript to work on it

1 <?xml version = "1.0"?>2 3 4 5 6 <article>7 8 <title>Simple XML</title>9 10 <date>September 19, 2001</date>11 12 <author>13 <firstName>Tem</firstName>14 <lastName>Nieto</lastName>15 </author>16 17 <summary>XML is pretty easy.</summary>18 19 <content>Once you have mastered XHTML, XML is easily20 learned. You must remember that XML is not for21 displaying information but for managing information.22 </content>23 24 </article>

XML document – Article.XML


DOM Methods

firstName

lastName

contents

summary

author

date

title

article

Tree structure for article.xml.

DOMExample.html

1 <?xml version="1.0"?>2 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"3 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">4 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">5 6 7 8 9 <head>10 <title>A DOM Example</title>11 </head>12 13 <body>14 15 <script type = "text/javascript" language = "JavaScript">16 <!--17 var xmlDocument = new ActiveXObject( "Microsoft.XMLDOM" );18 19 xmlDocument.load( "article.xml" );20 21 // get the root element22 var element = xmlDocument.documentElement;23 24 document.writeln( 25 "<p>Here is the root node of the document: " +26 "<strong>" + element.nodeName + "</strong>" +27 "<br />The following are its child elements:" +28 "</p><ul>" );29 30 // traverse all child nodes of root element31 for ( var i = 0; i < element.childNodes.length; i++ ) {32 var curNode = element.childNodes.item( i );33

Instantiate a Microsoft XML Document Object Model object and assign it to reference xmlDocument.

method load loads article.xml (Fig. 20.1) into memory.

Property documentElement corresponds to the root element in the document (e.g., article).Property nodeName corresponds to the name of an element,

attribute, etc.

Iterates through the root node’s children using property childNodes.Method item to obtain the child node at index i.


DOMExample.html

34 // print node name of each child element35 document.writeln( "<li><strong>" + curNode.nodeName36 + "</strong></li>" );37 }38 39 document.writeln( "</ul>" );40 41 // get the first child node of root element42 var currentNode = element.firstChild;43 44 document.writeln( "<p>The first child of root node is: " +45 "<strong>" + currentNode.nodeName + "</strong>" +46 "<br />whose next sibling is:" );47 48 // get the next sibling of first child49 var nextSib = currentNode.nextSibling;50 51 document.writeln( "<strong>" + nextSib.nodeName +52 "</strong>.<br />Value of <strong>" +53 nextSib.nodeName + "</strong> element is: " );54 55 var value = nextSib.firstChild;56 57 // print the text value of the sibling58 document.writeln( "<em>" + value.nodeValue + "</em>" +59 "<br />Parent node of <strong>" + nextSib.nodeName +60 "</strong> is: <strong>" + 61 nextSib.parentNode.nodeName + "</strong>.</p>" );62 -->63 </script>64 65 </body>66 </html>

Retrieve the root node’s first child node (i.e., title) using property firstChild.

Property parentNode returns a node’s parent node.


Program Output


The SOAP Connection

• SOAP, WSDL, UDDI uses:– XML– Namespaces – and Schemas

• Original idea behind Webservices– Connection through the Internet– Good sense to use XML – W3C child– Everyone loves W3C

• practical solutions “that work”

presentation 6: introduction to xml and related technologies

Documents