Using the SQLXML Data Type

If you're a Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) developer, you'll want to preview the SQLXML technology, currently in development. Check out procedures to create an XML document, store an XML document in a relational database, retrieve an XML document from a database, and navigate an XML document with the SQLXML Java data type.

Vohra, Deepak. IBM (2006). Articles>Information Design>Databases>XML

Using Topic Maps to Extend Relational Databases

Topic Maps provide a very flexible and robust way to add arbitrary data to a relational databases at runtime. Moreover, Topic Maps come with a predefined exchange mechanism (the XML Topic Maps (XTM) interchange syntax) to allow data to be exported to XML.

de Graauw, Marc. XML.com (2003). Articles>Information Design>Databases>XML

Using XML

XML is not just a pretty face, living in isolation from the rest of the computing world. XML is more than a rulebook for generating custom markup languages. It is part of a family of technologies, which, working together, make your XML-based documents very useful indeed.

Eisenberg, J. David. List Apart, A (2002). Design>Information Design>Web Design>XML

Using XML as an Application-Level Protocol

In one of my past articles, A Pattern/Framework for Client/Server Programming in Java, I discussed a pattern for client/server development using java. That article does not answer exactly how the two parties, client and server, communicate with each other. We require an application-level protocol to do the talking between two entities. It sets up rules about how the two applications/entities communicate and understand each other over a network. If you happen to know the TCP/IP networking model or the OSI networking model, you will observe that network-based communication is implemented in layers, with the application layer at the top and the physical layer at the bottom. This article discusses issues you must face when implementing an application-level protocol and how XML proves to be an excellent choice to represent and implement the application-level protocol.

Saleem, Usman. Developer.com (2002). Design>Information Design>Software>XML

Validating a Custom DTD

This article will show you how to create a custom DTD that will add custom attributes, and will also show you how to validate documents that use those new attributes.

Eisenberg, J. David. List Apart, A (2005). Articles>Information Design>Standards>XML

Voice Extensible Markup Language Status  

Introduces readers to Voice Extensible Markup Language (VXML), a markup language that allows vocal interaction between users and applications via a telephone-based communication system. The author also discusses World Wide Web Consortium specifications for VXML.

Lippincott, Richard J. Intercom (2004). Design>Information Design>XML>Voice

What Are RSS Feeds?

RSS, also known as rich site summary or real simply syndication, arrived on the scene a number of years ago, but was only recently embraced by webmasters as a means to effectively syndicate content. RSS Feeds provide webmasters and content providers an avenue to provide concise summaries to prospective readers. Thousands of commercial web sites and blogs now publish content summaries in an RSS feed. Each item in the feed typically contains a headline; article summary and link back to the online article.

Small Business Software (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>RSS

What Is RDF?

RDF was originally created in 1999 as a standard on top of XML for encoding metadata--literally, data about data. Metadata is, of course, things like who authored a web page, what date a blog entry was published, etc., information that is in some sense secondary to some other content already on the regular web. Since then, and perhaps especially after the updated RDF spec in 2004, the scope of RDF has really evolved into something greater. The most exciting uses of RDF aren't in encoding information about web resources, but information about and relations between things in the real world: people, places, concepts, etc.

Tauberer, Joshua. XML.com (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>Metadata

What is: XPATH

XPath is a way of pulling out particular data from an XML document. It is used by XSL to determine what should be output in your documents. It is essentially a systematic way of defining an address of each piece of data.

Tech Write Tips (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>XSL

What the Hell is XML?

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is the Eurodollar of web development. Both XML and the Euro bring order to chaos; both offer undeniable, wide-ranging benefits; both are poised, in 2002, to change the way we do things. Frankly, both scare the crap out of people. For web developers, 2002 is a time to conquer fears and take their first hands-on approach to XML. It's time to examine XML and realize the practical benefits that it can provide to web projects today. The bankers can fend for themselves.

Janisch, Troy. List Apart, A (2002). Design>Web Design>Information Design>XML

The What, Why, How, and Where of DITA  

Is DITA right for your organization? This article provides a starting point for your own research on DITA.

Steiner, Rob. Intercom (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

What's the Diff? Diff XML Documents

If you are handling many XML documents, sometimes you need to check the differences between two or more documents. You can perform diffs of XML documents with online and command-line tools.

O'Reilly and Associates (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>UNIX

When is XML the Wrong Answer?  

XML-based publishing challenges authors to convert from the familiar desktop-publishing routine to new tools. This article explains what you should consider when deciding whether to implement XML.

O'Keefe, Sarah S. Intercom (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML

The Why and How of XML Data Islands

This article explains a useful way to embed data in an HTML document, and store it on the client, using XML. With XML becoming ever more pervasive and the client side implementation gaining a lot of ground, you will probably find yourself using this technique in many projects.

Krishnaswamy, Jayaram. Dev Articles (2006). Design>Web Design>Information Design>XML

Why You Should Include an XML Declaration

Although XML declarations are optional, every XML document should have one. An XML declaration helps both human users and automated software identify the document as XML. It identifies the version of XML in use, specifies the character encoding, and can even help optimize the parsing. Most importantly, it's a crucial clue that what you're reading is in fact an XML document in environments where file type information is unavailable or unreliable.

Harold, Elliotte Rusty. InformIT (2004). Articles>Information Design>XML

The World of RSS Explorations

I’ve now seen firsthand that RSS feedreaders, or news aggregators, truly can provide the ability to literally scan hundreds of site updates and headlines in a matter of seconds, letting me know when those sites have updated posts or news. Depending on the software used, the user can be notified by a bubble popping up, a sound, or the headlines appearing in a list with a right click mouseover on the aggregator’s system tray icon, for example.

Kaiser, Shirley E. Brainstorms and Raves (2003). Articles>Information Design>XML>RSS

X-Diff: An Effective Change Detection Algorithm for XML Documents    

XML has become the de facto standard format for web publishing and data transportation. Since online information changes frequently, being able to quickly detect changes in XML documents is important to Internet query systems, search engines, and continuous query systems. Previous work in change detection on XML, or other hierarchically structured documents, used an ordered tree model, in which left-to-right order among siblings is important and it can affect the change result. This paper argues that an unordered model (only ancestor relationships are significant) is more suitable for most database applications. Using an unordered model, change detection is substantially harder than using the ordered model, but the change result that it generates is more accurate. This paper proposes X-Diff, an effective algorithm that integrates key XML structure characteristics with standard tree-to-tree correction techniques. The algorithm is analyzed and compared with XyDiff [CAM02], a published XML diff algorithm. An experimental evaluation on both algorithms is provided.

Wang, Yuan, David J. DeWitt and Jin-Yi Cai. University of Wisconsin (2001). Articles>Information Design>XML

XMetaL-DITA

The XMetaL-DITA group was founded to educate XMetaL users in working with the DITA standard.

Yahoo. Organizations>Information Design>XML>DITA

XML

A collection of XML online resources maintained by IBM's DeveloperWorks division.

IBM. Resources>Information Design>XML

XML Adoption for Document-Based Applications  

The question is not whether XML will succeed as a widespread data format, but rather how fast, to what level and with what products. With the rapid maturing of the XML data standard by the W3C and the creation of many related standards, hundreds of leading vendors will ship XML-enabled products over the next 24 months. These products will drive a limited, but important, number of corporate and commercial publishing applications that will both prove the market viability of XML and also generate a small but critical mass of XML data that will trigger rapid widespread adoption.

Young, Brad and Randy Clark. STC Proceedings (1999). Design>Information Design>XML

XML and Documentation  

XML provides a robust, non-proprietary, and verifiable file format for the storage and transmission of text and data both on and off the Web. XML removes the complexity of SGML, making it easier to define your own document types, and to write programs to handle them.

Bokil, Manoj. STC India (2003). Articles>Documentation>Information Design>XML

XML Architecture for Customized User Assistance

To create a specific deliverable, you collect all of the relevant topics and wrap information around them. A printed book, for instance, contains topics grouped into chapters along with front and back matter.

O'Keefe, Sarah S. WritersUA (2005). Articles>Information Design>Help>XML

An XML Architecture for Technical Documentation: The Darwin Information Typing Architecture  

DITA is an architecture for creating topicoriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways. It is also an architecture for creating new information types and describing new information domains, allowing groups to create very specific, targeted document type definitions using a process called specialization, while at the same time reusing common output transforms and design rules. We discuss several methods that can be used to extend DITA’s basic topic types.

Day, Don, Erik Hennum, John Hunt, Michael Priestley and David Schell. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

XML Articles and Papers

The following list of articles and papers on XML represents a mixed collection of references: articles in professional journals, slide sets from presentations, press releases, articles in trade magazines, Usenet News postings, etc. Some are from experts and some are not; some are refereed and others are not; some are semi-technical and others are popular; some contain errors and others don't. Discretion is strongly advised. The articles are listed approximately in the reverse chronological order of their appearance. Publications covering specific XML applications may be referenced in the dedicated sections rather than in the following listing.

Cover, Robin. Cover Pages. Design>Information Design>XML

XML Basics

XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. XML is used to aid the exchange of data. The language makes it possible to define data in a structured way. XML tags are not predefined like HTML. XML lets you create your own unique tags that are meaningful for your data, hence the use of the term 'extensible.'

Zaman, Mamun. Dev Articles (2007). Articles>Information Design>Standards>XML