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XML Reference Guide

📄 Contents

  1. XML Reference Guide
  2. Overview
  3. What Is XML?
  4. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  5. Books and e-Books
  6. Official Documentation
  7. Table of Contents
  8. The Document Object Model
  9. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  10. Books and e-Books
  11. Official Documentation
  12. DOM and Java
  13. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  14. Books and e-Books
  15. Implementations
  16. DOM and JavaScript
  17. Using a Repeater
  18. Repeaters and XML
  19. Repeater Resources
  20. DOM and .NET
  21. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  22. Books and e-Books
  23. Documentation and Downloads
  24. DOM and C++
  25. DOM and C++ Resources
  26. DOM and Perl
  27. DOM and Perl Resources
  28. DOM and PHP
  29. DOM and PHP Resources
  30. DOM Level 3
  31. DOM Level 3 Core
  32. DOM Level 3 Load and Save
  33. DOM Level 3 XPath
  34. DOM Level 3 Validation
  35. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  36. Books and e-Books
  37. Documentation and Implementations
  38. The Simple API for XML (SAX)
  39. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  40. Books and e-Books
  41. Official Documentation
  42. SAX and Java
  43. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  44. Books and e-Books
  45. SAX and .NET
  46. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  47. SAX and Perl
  48. SAX and Perl Resources
  49. SAX and PHP
  50. SAX and PHP Resources
  51. Validation
  52. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  53. Books and e-Books
  54. Official Documentation
  55. Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
  56. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  57. Books and e-Books
  58. Official Documentation
  59. XML Schemas
  60. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  61. Books and e-Books
  62. Official Documentation
  63. RELAX NG
  64. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  65. Books and e-Books
  66. Official Documentation
  67. Schematron
  68. Official Documentation and Implementations
  69. Validation in Applications
  70. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  71. Books and e-Books
  72. XSL Transformations (XSLT)
  73. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  74. Books and e-Books
  75. Official Documentation
  76. XSLT in Java
  77. Java in XSLT Resources
  78. XSLT and RSS in .NET
  79. XSLT and RSS in .NET Resources
  80. XSL-FO
  81. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  82. Books and e-Books
  83. Official Documentation
  84. XPath
  85. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  86. Books and e-Books
  87. Official Documentation
  88. XML Base
  89. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  90. Official Documentation
  91. XHTML
  92. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  93. Books and e-Books
  94. Official Documentation
  95. XHTML 2.0
  96. Documentation
  97. Cascading Style Sheets
  98. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  99. Books and e-Books
  100. Official Documentation
  101. XUL
  102. XUL References
  103. XML Events
  104. XML Events Resources
  105. XML Data Binding
  106. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  107. Books and e-Books
  108. Specifications
  109. Implementations
  110. XML and Databases
  111. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  112. Books and e-Books
  113. Online Resources
  114. Official Documentation
  115. SQL Server and FOR XML
  116. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  117. Books and e-Books
  118. Documentation and Implementations
  119. Service Oriented Architecture
  120. Web Services
  121. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  122. Books and e-Books
  123. Official Documentation
  124. Creating a Perl Web Service Client
  125. SOAP::Lite
  126. Amazon Web Services
  127. Creating the Movable Type Plug-in
  128. Perl, Amazon, and Movable Type Resources
  129. Apache Axis2
  130. REST
  131. REST Resources
  132. SOAP
  133. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  134. Books and e-Books
  135. Official Documentation
  136. SOAP and Java
  137. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  138. Books and e-Books
  139. Official Documentation
  140. WSDL
  141. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  142. Books and e-Books
  143. Official Documentation
  144. UDDI
  145. UDDI Resources
  146. XML-RPC
  147. XML-RPC in PHP
  148. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  149. Books and e-Books
  150. Official Documentation
  151. Ajax
  152. Asynchronous Javascript
  153. Client-side XSLT
  154. SAJAX and PHP
  155. Ajax Resources
  156. JSON
  157. Ruby on Rails
  158. Creating Objects
  159. Ruby Basics: Arrays and Other Sundry Bits
  160. Ruby Basics: Iterators and Persistence
  161. Starting on the Rails
  162. Rails and Databases
  163. Rails: Ajax and Partials
  164. Rails Resources
  165. Web Services Security
  166. Web Services Security Resources
  167. SAML
  168. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  169. Books and e-Books
  170. Specification and Implementation
  171. XML Digital Signatures
  172. XML Digital Signatures Resources
  173. XML Key Management Services
  174. Resources for XML Key Management Services
  175. Internationalization
  176. Resources
  177. Grid Computing
  178. Grid Resources
  179. Web Services Resource Framework
  180. Web Services Resource Framework Resources
  181. WS-Addressing
  182. WS-Addressing Resources
  183. WS-Notifications
  184. New Languages: XML in Use
  185. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  186. Books and e-Books
  187. Official Documentation
  188. Google Web Toolkit
  189. GWT Basic Interactivity
  190. Google Sitemaps
  191. Google Sitemaps Resources
  192. Accessibility
  193. Web Accessibility
  194. XML Accessibility
  195. Accessibility Resources
  196. The Semantic Web
  197. Defining a New Ontology
  198. OWL: Web Ontology Language
  199. Semantic Web Resources
  200. Google Base
  201. Microformats
  202. StructuredBlogging
  203. Live Clipboard
  204. WML
  205. XHTML-MP
  206. WML Resources
  207. Google Web Services
  208. Google Web Services API
  209. Google Web Services Resources
  210. The Yahoo! Web Services Interface
  211. Yahoo! Web Services and PHP
  212. Yahoo! Web Services Resources
  213. eBay REST API
  214. WordML
  215. WordML Part 2: Lists
  216. WordML Part 3: Tables
  217. WordML Resources
  218. DocBook
  219. Articles
  220. Books and e-Books
  221. Official Documentation and Implementations
  222. XML Query
  223. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  224. Books and e-Books
  225. Official Documentation
  226. XForms
  227. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  228. Books and e-Books
  229. Official Documentation
  230. Resource Description Framework (RDF)
  231. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  232. Books and e-Books
  233. Official Documentation
  234. Topic Maps
  235. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  236. Books and e-Books
  237. Official Documentation, Implementations, and Other Resources
  238. Rich Site Summary (RSS)
  239. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  240. Books and e-Books
  241. Official Documentation
  242. Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE)
  243. Atom
  244. Podcasting
  245. Podcasting Resources
  246. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
  247. Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
  248. Books and e-Books
  249. Official Documentation
  250. OPML
  251. OPML Resources
  252. Summary
  253. Projects
  254. JavaScript TimeTracker: JSON and PHP
  255. The Javascript Timetracker
  256. Refactoring to Javascript Objects
  257. Creating the Yahoo! Widget
  258. Web Mashup
  259. Google Maps
  260. Indeed Mashup
  261. Mashup Part 3: Putting It All Together
  262. Additional Resources
  263. Frequently Asked Questions About XML
  264. What's XML, and why should I use it?
  265. What's a well-formed document?
  266. What's the difference between XML and HTML?
  267. What's the difference between HTML and XHTML?
  268. Can I use XML in a browser?
  269. Should I use elements or attributes for my document?
  270. What's a namespace?
  271. Where can I get an XML parser?
  272. What's the difference between a well-formed document and a valid document?
  273. What's a validating parser?
  274. Should I use DOM or SAX for my application?
  275. How can I stop a SAX parser before it has parsed the entire document?
  276. 2005 Predictions
  277. 2006 Predictions
  278. Nick's Book Picks

If you're an object-oriented programmer, you probably gravitated towards the Document Object Model for manipulating your XML data. DOM is handy, in that it's widely supported, it lets you manage your data in an almost tangible way, and it lets you make changes to the Document in memory. Oh sure, it's not the only way to manipulate XML data, and in some cases, it's not even the best way. But it's the most common way, and for most of us, it was our first way.

Of course, there are certain ... annoyances when it comes to working with the Document Object Model. For example, reading a document from a file is fine, but what if you want to create one from scratch? For that matter, how do you create a parser? Output the data? These are all issues that suffer from irritations stemming from a lack of standardization or just downright difficulty. And don't even get me started on moving a Node from one Document to another!

Fortunately, I'm not the only one to notice these problems. In fact, developers started complaining about them way back when the DOM was first introduced, so it was inevitable that someone would take up the cause and solve them. Enter the Document Object Model, Level 3. DOM Level 3 consists of several different recommendations and notes:

  • DOM Level 3 Core: The DOM Level 3 Core Recommendation's big claim to fame is the specification of "bootstrapping", or a standard way in which to create a DOM Document (or specifically, a DocumentImplementation) from scratch. Previously, the fact that everything was defined as interfaces made it necessary to "hard-code" the creation of a Document to a particular implementation. In other words, you couldn't run your Xerces-Java code in a JAXP implementation. The Core also clears up some issues regarding namespace resolution and adds the abililty to create a DOMConfiguration. Another interesting feature of DOM Level 3 is the ability to bind your own non-XML data to a Document via the new DOMUserData type. This Recommendation also introduces some new methods to existing objects, making it possible to move Nodes between Documents, normalize Documents, and solve other problems that have aggravated developers for years.
  • DOM Level 3 Load and Save: If the ability to easily load and save an XML Document object seems insignificant to you, then either you've never done it or you've gotten used to jumping through hoops such as performing an XSL identity transformation just to send your XML out to a file. This Recommendation defines a standard way to not only create and configure a parser, but also to specify an output location, configure the output, and actually output your XML to a destination.
  • DOM Level 3 Validation: This recommendation solves the problem of creating a document that is not only valid when you parse it, but also after you've edited it. It creates the ability to validate a document "on demand", as well as the ability to prevent non-valid changes to the document. It also gives you the ability to know what changes are permitted at a particular node (in order to list available options, for example) or to know whether a particular change is valid.
  • DOM Level 3 XPath Working Group Note: If you've ever tried to get to a specific node within a Document object, you'll appreciate an implementation of this document. It defines the means by which a DOM implementation can enable you to select a Node or Nodes based on an XPath expression, just as you would in an XSL Transformation. This document is not a recomendation, as the Working Group doesn't expect to get two implementations that use the same binding.
  • DOM Level 3 Views and Formatting Working Group Note: This document builds on the DOM Level 2 Views Recommendation, but at the moment doesn't see a lot of activity.

In order to use the Document Object Model Level 3, you need to have an implementation handy, which at the time of this writing is easier said than done. Because I'm predisposed toward Java, Here are the instructions for making DOM Level 3 available to you:

  1. Install Java. You can download it from java.sun.com. I'm using Java 1.4.x for these instructions. Hopefully the final release of Java 1.5 will have this capability included and this will be a moot point.
  2. Download beta2-dom3-Xerces-J-bin.2.6.2.zip from Apache and extract the files from it.
  3. Create the directories <javahome>/lib/endorsed and <javahome>/jre/lib/endorsed and add the dom3-xercesImpl.jar and dom3-xml-apis.jar files to both.
  4. You may also need to add the jar files to your classpath, although technically that shouldn't be necessary.
  5. In order to get the documentation, download the Xerces source and tools distributions. Unpack both.
  6. Copy the tools directory to the xerces-2_6_2 directory (or whatever directory you chose for the source files).
  7. Open a command prompt window and change to the xerces-2_6_2 directory.
  8. Type build javadocs to generate the API documentation. Note that this documentation is different from what appears in the samples on the Xerces website. (You can also use build jar-dom3 and build apijar-dom3 to generate newer versions of the dom3-xercesImpl.jar and dom3-xml-apis.jar files.)
  9. Now you can test your installation. Create a small XML file called personal.xml and save it in the directory in which you'll create your new class.
  10. Create a new Java class:
    import org.w3c.dom.bootstrap.DOMImplementationRegistry;
    import org.w3c.dom.DOMImplementationList;
    import org.w3c.dom.ls.DOMImplementationLS;
    import org.w3c.dom.ls.LSParser;
    import org.w3c.dom.Document;
    import org.w3c.dom.ls.LSSerializer;
    import org.w3c.dom.ls.LSOutput;
    
    public class testDom {
    
       public static void main (String args[]){
    
          try {
             System.setProperty(DOMImplementationRegistry.PROPERTY,
                    "org.apache.xerces.dom.DOMImplementationSourceImpl");
             DOMImplementationRegistry registry = 
                    DOMImplementationRegistry.newInstance();
             DOMImplementationLS impl = 
                    (DOMImplementationLS)registry.getDOMImplementation("LS");
             LSParser builder = impl.createLSParser(
                    DOMImplementationLS.MODE_SYNCHRONOUS, null);
    
             Document document = builder.parseURI("personal.xml");
    
             LSSerializer writer = impl.createLSSerializer();
             LSOutput output = impl.createLSOutput();
             output.setSystemId("file:///personalout.xml");
             writer.write(document, output);
          } catch (Exception e){
             System.out.println(e.toString());
          }
       }
    }
  11. Compile and run the class. You should see a new file, personalout.xml, in the root directory.

Of course, there's a lot of new information here, and in the coming weeks, I'll be going over it to explain how DOM Level 3 works, but for now, just compile and run the application to make sure it works.

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Last Update: November 17, 2020