XML Spot

Best practices in XML design

admin — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Experience gained through documentation and development of xml based systems are required for any xml designer’s success in making a great program. Design patterns which are used, are a good way to learn to transmit, and formalize, the knowledge you must have in order to deal with recurring problems and solutions which will come up when developing software.

XML patterns are not a recipe to success when it comes to developing software. Rather, they are a way for you to become familiar with the different styles, the problems which will pop up during design, and how to take care of those problems, in order for you to derive the best possible software application program. Whether you are using processing patters, architectural patters, testing patters, or implementation patterns, continually working with any and all of them, will teach you how to troubleshoot once these common “pattern problems,” come up when you are developing your own software.

So, in order for you to fully understand xml design, and be able to put out the best software program you are capable of designing, practicing, troubleshooting, and learning how to implement and deal with common problems, will all help you make the best design program possible.

How you and your company can use XML

admin — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Programming languages have changed over time, but XML has remained popular since it was introduced. The companies that are utilizing this language have great success with separating data that is received.

XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. It makes sense to stream core business processes with XML because companies depend on data. Companies that use data must parse this data in ways that are useful. The XML language allows companies to attach labels to the data.

This is extremely important in things like websites where customers enter data. Tags for things like names and addresses can be embedded in XML code. This allows users to transfer data from pages to databases with descriptions. This is very important for companies that have large amounts of data.

Developers that use XML have the ability to build better databases. They also have better content management processes for business functions. XML allows users to created XHTML documents and turn them into HTML files. This allows users to transfer descriptive data without distorting the original content.

There are lots of programming languages on the market. ASP and PHP are popular, but XML has continued to be successful because it is effective and easy to use.

Choosing an XML editor

admin — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Most of us who venture into web page creation will come across the task of choosing an XML editor sooner or later. XML is a mark-up language which is used in the middle layer. Since it is platform independent, it is the preferred choice of programmers who like to maintain flexibility.

The main purpose of XML is to focus on documents and define the data that they contain; it has taken on the role of representation of “data structures”. This is an efficient way of storing and organizing data. Using an XML editor with built in error checking features becomes useful when you are describing a large document and its data.

Check for the following features when choosing an XML editor and you will avoid a lot of headaches. By default all XML editors should have Schema and DTD (Document Type Declaration) based validation. The editor should be capable of attaching some sort of standardized display component like XSL () or CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) for display into standard HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) pages thus giving it WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) capability.

The editor should support Grid Views as well as Tree Views, the former being a table-like representation of the data structure and the latter a graphic tree structure. These two features are extremely useful when creating or editing a complex schema or DTD.

The editor should also have the capability to create a standardized format of XML from the one you have written into it without any degradation of syntax or quality. Most modern XML editors now support a multitude of features that include template support to ensure a standardized approach throughout the document library as well as support for various other languages like Java etc. Some editors are free while some can range to several hundred dollars.

XML and how to use it

admin — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

XML (which stands for eXtensible Markup Language) refers to a set of rules for encoding documents into a form in which they can be read by machine. Essentially, it is a technology for managing the exchange of data. Several computer languages make use of XML. These include xhtml (a stricter form of html for designing websites); SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics, used for describing the elements of pictures); and Keyhole Markup Language (for displaying information on maps).

The exchange of data has been magnified in importance ever since the rise of the Internet.
For example, in addition to XML, the present computer age offers us get.wildblue.com/’ >get.wildblue.com, a site for high-speed Internet linked to your computer by satellite. Such connection is much faster than the older form of dial-up connection. Thanks to satellite internet and other advances, the technology for data exchange had to advance as well.

That’s why XML was developed, and it’s rapidly replacing its older counterpart, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), traditionally used by large organizations, over which it has such advantages as being self-describing, transformable, and future-oriented.

XML’s essential elements are a document containing code in XML; a schema describing that file’s structure and tags; and a stylesheet that contains formatting instructions.

Whatever happened to DTD?

www.xmlsp.com — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 19:57:36 +0000

There was a time when Document Type Definition (DTD) was all the rage. It was created as a set of declarations alongside Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), and helped contribute to the development of that language, Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), and our very own Extensible Markup Language (XML). However, today DTD has been largely replaced by more modern schema languagesthe official XML Schema, RELAX NG, Schematron, ISO DSDL, and others. So what happened?It’s true that DTD has many benefits. For one, its age and inclusion in the XML 1.0 standard means that DTD declarations are supported across XML. DTD not only has less declarations than later languages, but also shorter ones, meaning it’s possible to see more language on a single screen. DTD allows for the declaration of SGML entity setsstrings associated with unique aliases or reserved words. Finally, namespaces weren’t around at the beginning of XML, so DTDs still define document types rather than namespace types. This means that all constraints are included in a single collection.Despite these advantages, though, other languages still largely overshadow DTDs. As mentioned above, DTDs have no namespace support, which is now a cornerstone of XML development. They are too simple to easily define complex structures, although some can be forced through by sacrificing clarity. Finally, since they use regular expression syntax, it is harder to use than an element-based syntax.XML Schema (also known as WXS or XSD) was published as a W3C recommendation in 2001, making it the first recommended schema after DTDs. It allows the content of an element to be validated against a data typea significant absence from DTDs. XSD uses a post-validation infoset to store information about a document, another of the many features which makes it especially useful for XML. It might be sad to say, but DTDs seem to truly be on their way out.

Layer 7 announces plans to free XML

www.xmlsp.com — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:42:49 +0000

Layer 7 is an international company working in “security, governance and connectivity solutions for SOA, Web and Cloud,” according to their web site. Part of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the use of XML Gateways to establish and protect identity in different web services. Layer 7 has contributed to new XML technology in the past, such as with their XML Acceleration hardware. On October 5, they announced a new breakthrough: the first portable Freedom License, which will allow consumers to transfer their license between hardware, software, and other applications without cost.The growing popularity of cloud computing, in which resources and information are shared across a broad Internet-based grid, has made it even more important for consumers to be able to move their licenses arounda feature which other companies like Oracle and IBM do not offer. It can’t be long before Layer 7′s competitors offer their own versions of the technology, but for now, the company has pulled ahead.