An Introduction to XML and Web Technologies

By Anders Moller and Michael Schwartzbach

What is XML?
XML: eXtensible Markup Language is a framework for defining markup languages:

• there is no fixed collection of markup tags - we may define our own tags, tailored for our kind of information
• each XML language is targeted at its own application domain, but the languages will share many features
• there is a common set of generic tools for processing documents

XML is not a replacement for HTML:

• HTML should ideally be just another XML language
• in fact, XHTML is just that
• XHTML is a (very popular) XML language for hypertext markup

XML is designed to:

• separate syntax from semantics to provide a common framework for structuring information (browser rendering semantics is completely defined by stylesheets);
• allow tailor-made markup for any imaginable application domain
• support internationalization (Unicode) and platform independence
• be the future of structured information, including databases 

Following are the few topics covered in this XML tutorial

• HTML and XML - structuring information for the future
  Namespaces, XInclude, and XML Base - common extensions to the XML specification
  DTD, XML Schema, and DSD - defining language syntax with schemas
  XLink, XPointer, and XPath - linking and addressing
  XSL and XSLT - stylesheets and document transformation
  XQuery - document querying
  DOM, SAX, and JDOM - programming for XML
  W3C - some background on the World Wide Web Consortium

Read More/Download