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MC711

XML AND WEB SERVICES

L T P C
3 1 2 4

PURPOSE :
The purpose of the course is to impart knowledge on eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and
to achieve secured, messaging through web services.
INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the course, student should be able to:
Write a XML application using structure and presentation technologies
Apply XML manipulation technologies such as XSLT, XPath, XLink and XQuery
Do Program Manipulation and Dynamic access through DOM architecture
Develop web services and ensure security
Understand the need of semantic web
Role of XML, XML language basics, XML Revolution, XML Technology family, Simple XML
fie creation, and XML Namespaces
XML document rule, XML structuring, XML presentation technologies, XML Transformation,
XSLT, XQUERY, XLINK, XPATH
XML Parsers, XML DOM architecture, Classes of DOM family, Combining XML DOM and
XSL, Relational Database and XML
SOAP protocol, XML-RPC, HTTP, SOAP faults and SOAP attachments, Web services, UDDI,
XML security
Semantic web Technology, Layered Architecture, RDF and OWL representation
TOTAL

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TEXT BOOK:
1. Frank. P. Coyle - XML, Web Services and the data revolution - Pearson Education,
2002
REFERENCE BOOKS:
1. Gavin Powel - Beginning XML Databases - Wrox Press, 2007
2. Ramesh Nagappan, Robert Skoczylas and Rima Patel Sriganesh, - Developing Java Web
Services - Wiley Publishing Inc., 2004
3. Grigoris Antoniou and Frank Van Harmelen,-A Semantic Web Primer - The MIT Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England, 2004
4. Sandeep Chatterjee, James Webber, - Developing Enterprise Web Services -, Pearson
Education, 2004
5. McGovern, et al., - Java Web Services Architecture -, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers,
2005
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MC0711 XML Web Services


S.N.
Exercise
1-4.
Simple XML file creation
5.
Empty element
6.
Root element
7.
Child elements
8.
XMLDOC Extensible
9.
Attributes
10.
Attribute to element conversion
11.
Attribute as meta data
12.
Including all options
13,14
Special Markup elements
15.
Comment to exclude the document
16.
Use firstobject editor, MSWord, MSExcel
17.
XML and CSS Example for PI
18.
Internal DTD implementation
19.
External DTD implementation
20.
DTD with CDATA
21.
CDATA usage
22.
XML schema
23.
XML schema creation in .Net*
24.
HTML file to validate schema based XML
25.
XML- Schema validation Additional exercise
26.
Step by step Schema Development Example
27.
CSS Presentation
28.
XSL formatting
29.
XSLTransformation with various options
30.
XSLT for-each sort element
31.
XSLT if and choose, when element
32.
XPATH implementation
33.
Data in Tabular form
34.
Implement XLINK*
35.
XML DOM elements
36.
XML ParseError elements
37.
DOM Object Properties
38.
Parse XMLDocument using XMLDOM
39.
XML data access in .Net*
40.
Web Services : .Net, Java*
* Demo Only

Date of Completion

Staff Signature
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Unit I: Role of XML, XML language basics, XML Revolution, XML Technology family,
Simple XML fie creation, and XML Namespaces
1. Introduction:
The Need of XML: There are three major aspects to extending the enterprise from a relatively
constrained network to the broad reach of the Web. The most commonly considered aspect is the
business-to-consumer (B2C) connection, exploiting opportunities that abound in online
commerce. Another area is the business-to-employee (B2E) connection, adding efficiencies in
operations and customer contact by using the Web instead of proprietary networks. A third area,
and one of particular interest to businesses trying to survive in competitive environments, is the
business-to-business (B2B) connection made possible by the Web. Together, these opportunities
are driving what is seen as the extended enterprise, a mix of traditional networks and the loose
space of the Web.

2. History of Markup Languages


Markup is a method of conveying metadata (information about another dataset).
GML (General Markup Language)
SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) SGML-based markup languages all use literal
strings of characters, called tags to delimit the major components of the metadata, called
elements
HTML (part of sgml for internet) - deals presentation of data . pioneered by tim-lee
But no reusability of data ie) data retrieval not possible Few tags of HTML are not having end
tags
XML (root from SGML) . only for representation of data . structuring
For browser side no better technology than HTML

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The issues with HTML


Merits:
Very easy to use & learn
Presentation technology
It is the most popular

Shortcomings:
NOT a data technology
Poor Searching
There is no Intelligence of content/data
We loose meaning association with content
Data cannot be represented hierarchically
Limited set of tags

XML Vs HTML
Similar in appearance
Both are based on SGML
BUT
XML describes data (XML was designed to transport and store data, with focus on what
data is )
HTML displays data (HTML was designed to display data, with focus on how data looks )
The W3C developed ten design goals for XML, to quote from the Recommendation: The design
goals for XML are:
i.
XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the Internet.
ii. XML shall support a wide variety of applications.
iii. XML shall be compatible with SGML.
iv.
It shall be easy to write programs that process XML documents.
v. The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the absolute minimum,
ideally zero.
vi.
XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear.
vii.
The XML design should be prepared quickly.
viii. The design of XML shall be formal and concise.
ix. XML documents shall be easy to create.
x. Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.

3.What is XML ?

XML stands for EXtensible Markup Language


XML is a markup language much like HTML
XML was designed to carry data, not to display data
XML tags are not predefined. You must define your own tags
XML is designed to be self-descriptive
XML is a W3C Recommendation

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XML (eXtensible Markup Language) provides a standards-based method for describing data.
XML)is a simple data description language with profound implications. XML has the ability to
describe data using a simple grammar that is highly interoperable among the many
heterogeneous systems that are connected to the Internet. XML has a several key strengths that
have helped it to become the de facto method for describing data:
XML is a text-based language, which makes it easily readable and more portable than
binary data format
XML give the ability to define your own tags to describe data and its relationships to
other data
XML strictly enforces its language syntax, unlike HTML.
Parsers are widely available to accurately parse and validate XML structure that you
define, which means you dont have to do it yourself.
It is a meta language defined by w3C and it is open standards. XML is a set of rules and
guidelines for describing structured data in plain text. It can be read by any existing
language/tools which makes xml is a common message communication over SOAP protocol for
exchanging data. All the tags in XML are user defined tags.
All XML file should have
(i)
processing instructions
(ii)
all tags should have end tag and properly nested
(iii) all xml should have root element
(iv)
case sensitive
The rules of XML is checked by parser. (parser does not change format of file, only
checks but compiler checks the syntax and change the file into another format)
well formed xml file is parsed and valid by parser.
XML is a
o platform-independent,
o self-describing,
o expandable,
o standard data exchange format
o that can be used either independently or
o embedded and used within other solutions.
o Describes the information, not the presentation. Format flexible.
o Derived as a subset of SGML
o Allows you to define your own tags : Example: <DATE>Dec 06, 2006</DATE>
o XML: <author> YAG </author> (own Tags)
o HTML: <B> YAG </B> (Predefined tags)
o Provides meaningful & readable data
o Meaning searches can be performed
o Much simpler than SGML, SGML spec = 300 pages, XML = 33 pages
o Purely a Data Technology
o Supports compound documents
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XML Separates Data from HTML: With XML, data can be stored in separate XML files. This
way you can concentrate on using HTML for layout and display, and be sure that changes in the
underlying data will not require any changes to the HTML.
XML Simplifies Data Sharing: In the real world, computer systems and databases contain data in
incompatible formats. XML data is stored in plain text format. This provides a software- and
hardware-independent way of storing data. This makes it much easier to create data that can be
shared by different applications.
XML Simplifies Data Transport: One of the most time-consuming challenges for developers is to
exchange data between incompatible systems over the Internet. Exchanging data as XML greatly
reduces this complexity, since the data can be read by different incompatible applications.
XML Simplifies Platform Changes: Upgrading to new systems (hardware or software platforms),
is always time consuming. Large amounts of data must be converted and incompatible data is
often lost. XML data is stored in text format. This makes it easier to expand or upgrade to new
operating systems, new applications, or new browsers, without losing data
XML Makes Your Data More Available: Different applications can access your data, not only in
HTML pages, but also from XML data sources. With XML, your data can be available to all
kinds of "reading machines" (Handheld computers, voice machines, news feeds, etc), and make it
more available for blind people, or people with other disabilities.
XML advantages:

Web based
Extensible
License-free
Platform independent
Single end-to-end IT solution for electronic information exchanges
Lower cost than EDI
Easy to interpret
Domain specific vocabulary
Data interchange between different system

XML has had an impact across a broad range of areas. The following is a list of some of the
factors that have influenced XML's adoption by a variety of organizations and individuals.
XML files are human-readable. XML was designed as text so that, in the worst case,
someone can always read it to figure out the content. Such is not the case with binary data
formats.
Widespread industry support exists for XML. Numerous tools and utilities are being
provided with Web browsers, databases, and operating systems, making it easier and less
expensive for small and medium-sized organizations to import and export data in XML
format.
Major relational databases now have the native capability to read and generate XML data.
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A large family of XML support technologies is available for the interpretation and
transformation of XML data for Web page display and report generations.
XML integrates with standard Web protocols such as HTTP and FTP.

4.Role of XML:
XML is a specification for defining new markup languages. XML is a meta-language (literally a
language about languages) defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), one of the main
organizations driving the push to open Web standards. In its simplest sense, XML is a set of
rules and guidelines for describing structured data in plain text rather than proprietary binary
representations. However, as a phenomenon, XML goes beyond its technical specification. Since
its standardization by the W3C in 1998, XML has been the driving force behind numerous other

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standards and vocabularies that are forging a fundamental change in the software world. XML
has enabled industry vocabularies and protocols.

5.XML Language Basics


XML is simple. Technically, it's a language for creating other languages based on the insertion of
tags to help describe data. However, XML is actually more than just tags.
XML is a combination of tags and content in which the tags add meaning to the content. The
following is a simple XML markup of customer information. Start tags such as <Name> begin an
element that contains the actual data. End tags such as </Name> mark the end of an element
definition.
<Customer>
<Name>John von Neumann</Name>
<PhoneNum>914.631.7722</PhoneNum>
<FaxNum>914.631.7723</FaxNum>
<E-Mail>Johnny@cd.com</E-Mail>
</Customer>

For a company like ZwiftBooks, deciding on an XML representation for their data is a first step.
In trying to come up with an XML data vocabulary that may be useful in automating operations,
it's helpful to examine use cases that describe what occurs during a business interaction. Figure
2.2 illustrates the essence of a ZwiftBooks customer request and response.

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XML elements:

XML Attributes:

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Exercise 1: Create a Simple XML file:


<?xml version=1.0 encoding=utf-8 ?>
<books>
<book>
<name> Fundamental XML </name>
<author> Surya </author>
<level> Intro </level>
</book>
<book>
<name> Java for Beginners </name>
<author> Sathya </author>
<level> Beginner </level>
</book>
</books>
The first line is the XML declaration. It defines the XML version (1.0) and the encoding used (is
utf-8 character set). The next line describes the root element of the document <books>. The next
lines describe the child elements <book>, <author>, <level>
Exercise 2:
Open a notepad and type the information and view it in a browser:

XML Design Principle:


There are three key design elements that by omission contribute to XML's success:
No display is assumed. Unlike HTML, XML makes no assumptions about how tags will
be rendered in a browser or other display device. Auxiliary technologies such as style
sheets add this capability.
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There is no built-in data typing. DTDs and XML Schema provide support for defining the
structure and data types associated with an XML document.
No transport is assumed. The XML specification makes no as sumption about how XML
is to be transported across the Internet. This has opened the door to creative ideas about
delivering XML by means of HTTP, FTP, or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
6.XML Revolution
The three revolutions: data, architecture, and software. the three areas of impact are data, which
XML frees from the confines of fixed, program-dependent formats; architecture, with a change
in emphasis from tightly coupled distributed systems to a more loosely coupled confederation
based on the Web; and software, with the realization that software evolution is a better path to
managing complexity than building monolithic applications

a) The Data Revolution


Data is now free to travel the Web. Prior to XML, data was very much proprietary, closely
associated with applications that understood how data was formatted and how to process it. Now,
XML-based industry-specific data vocabularies provide alternatives to specialized Electronic
Data Interchange (EDI) solutions by facilitating B2B data exchange and playing a key role as a
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messaging infrastructure for distributed computing. XML enables the creation of programindependent data formats.
XML's strength is its data independence. XML is pure data description, not tied to any
programming language, operating system, or transport protocol. In the grand scheme of
distributed computing this is a radical idea. The implication is that we don't require lock-in to
programmatic infrastructures to make data available to Web-connected platforms. In effect, data
is free to move about globally without the constraints imposed by tightly coupled transportdependent architectures. XML's sole focus on data means that a variety of transport technologies
may be used to move XML across the Web. As a result, protocols such as HTTP have had a
tremendous impact on XML's viability and have opened the door to alternatives to CORBA,
RMI, and DCOM, which don't work over TCP/IP. XML does this by focusing on data and
leaving other issues to supporting technologies.
The Code, Data, Document Culture:

XML has emerged from a document culture. To understand XML's impact on the computing
world, it's useful to place XML in perspective. As Figure 1.9 shows, XML comes out of a
document culture that is distinct from the code and data cultures that are the hallmarks of the
mainstream computer industry. The code culture is characterized by a focus on programming
languages, beginning with FORTRAN and evolving through Algol to C, C++, and Java. The data
culture is characterized by COBOL, data processing, and databases. Both the data and code
cultures carry with them a built-in propensity to view the world through either a code or a data
lens. From a code perspective, data is something to be transported by procedure calls. From a
data perspective, data is something to be stored in databases and manipulated
Code and data have defined systems thinking. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw code and data
combine in the form of object-oriented languages such as C++, Smalltalk, Java, and Object
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COBOL. And yet, object technology was only a partial answer. As practitioners in the data world
had long realized, transactionsthe ability to update multiple databases in an all-or-none
mannerare essential to serious industrial-strength enterprise applications. Because component
frameworks provide transactions as a service to applications regardless of language origins, the
playing field quickly shifted from objects to components. Thus infrastructures such as CORBA,
DCOM, and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) provide interconnection, security, and transaction-based
services for extending the enterprise. In the mid 1990s, components were the only way to extend
legacy. However, XML changed the rules of the game.
XML opens up options for treating code as data. XML's emergence from the data-oriented
document culture has forced a rethinking about application development, particularly for those
accustomed to thinking of building applications from a code-based perspective. What XML
brings to the computing world is a technology that allows data to be freed from the constraints
created by code-centric infrastructures. Instead of requiring data to be subordinated to parameters
in a procedure call, XML now permits data to stand on its own. More radically, it allows code to
be treated as data, which has been the driving force behind using XML for remote procedure
calls. As Figure 1.10 illustrates, XML offers an alternative to both EDI and technologies such as
CORBA, RMI, and DCOM that lock data transfer into underlying networks and object
infrastructures. It is this change in perspective that is driving the widespread use of XML across
the entire computing industry and opening up new patterns of interaction, including Web
services.

b) The Architectural Revolution


Simplicity and the ability to combine different standards are driving forces behind W3C
deliberations . Together these XML-based technology initiatives open up new possibilities for
distributed computing that leverage the existing infrastructure of the Web and create a transition
from object-based distributed systems to architectures based on Web services that can be
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discovered, accessed, and assembled using open Web technologies. The focal point of this
change in architectural thinking has been a move from tightly coupled systems based on
established infrastructures such as CORBA, RMI, and DCOM, each with their own transport
protocol, to loosely coupled systems riding atop standard Web protocols such as TCP/IP.
Although the transport protocols underlying CORBA, RMI, and DCOM provide for efficient
communication between nodes, their drawback is their inability to communicate with other
tightly coupled systems or directly with the Web.
XML and the Web have enabled the loose coupling of software components. Loosely coupled
Web-based systems, on the other hand, provide what has long been considered the Holy Grail of
computing: universal connectivity. Using TCP/IP as the transport, systems can establish
connections with each other using common open-Web protocols. Although it is possible to build
software bridges linking tightly coupled systems with each other and the Web, such efforts are
not trivial and add another layer of complexity on top of an already complex infrastructure. As
Figure 1.11 shows, the loose coupling of the Web makes possible new system architectures built
around message-based middleware or less structured peer-to-peer interaction.

c) The Software Revolution


XML is part of a software revolution centered around combination and surprise. XML is also
part of a revolution in how we build software. During the 1970s and 1980s, software was
constructed as monolithic applications built to solve specific problems. The problem with large
software projects is that, by trying to tackle multiple problems at once, the software is often illsuited to adding new functionality and adapting to technological change. In the 1990s a different
model for software emerged based on the concept of simplicity. As Figure 1.12 illustrates,
instead of trying to define all requirements up front, this new philosophy was built around the
concept of creating building blocks capable of combination with other building blocks that either
already existed or were yet to be created.
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The Web is an example of the power of combination. Figure 1.13 illustrates how the Web as we
know it was not something thought out in strict detail. Each of the contributing technologies
focused on doing one thing well without inhibiting interconnection with other technologies. The
essential idea was to maximize the possibility of interaction and watch systems grow. The result
is the Web, a product of the confluence of forces that include the Internet, HTML, and HTTP.
Let's now look at how these same forces of combination and collaboration are driving the
revolution in software.

The power of combination is finding its way not only into software construction but up the
development chain to software specification and design. Rather than hoping to meet the needs of
users, design is now more collaborative, bringing in stakeholders early to ensure maximum
feedback and the benefits of collaborative thinking. Figure 1.14 illustrates how this collaborative
model is used by the W3C, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and Sun in its Java Community

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Process.

7.XML Technology Family


XML derives its strength from a variety of supporting technologies. XML is not just a
technology for defining data vocabularies. Surrounding XML is a wide variety of XML
standards and initiatives that act in combination with XML to address many of the issues
associated with bringing XML into mainstream computing, namely presentation, structure, and
transformation. As Figure 2.1 shows, the XML core includes XML itself, based on the XML 1.0
specification, and namespaces, the specification that allows XML documents from different
sources to be combined and yet be able to disambiguate elements with the same name from
different sources. Following is a list of other categories in the XML technology:
Structure and data types: When using XML to exchange data among clients, partners, and
suppliers, it's important to be able to define how XML documents should be structured.
DTDs and XML Schema provide this capability. DTDs come out of the world of
Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), focusing primarily on structure by
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specifying what elements and attributes are considered valid for a particular XML
instance document. DTDs have limited capability to specify data types, a circumstance
that can be explained historically by considering their origins in the document culture
(see Figure 1.9 in Chapter 1). XML Schema is a more recent initiative of the World Wide
Web Consortium (W3C) that puts a more conventional data processing spin on describing
XML data with more precision than with DTDs.
XML presentation technologies: In keeping with an important design pattern for robust
systems, XML intentionally separates data content from presentation through the
introduction of supporting technologies that focus on delivering content to users via a
variety of devices and presentation media. Among the technologies for presentation are
XHTML, a modular XML-conformant replacement for HTML; CSS for controlling the
display properties of HTML or XML in Web browsers; XSL and XSL Formatting
Objects (XSL-FO) for formatting XML for various output media; XForms for collecting
data from Web forms and returning XML; VoiceXML, for delivering content to voiceenabled devices; and Wireless Markup Language (WML), for delivery to wireless
devices enabled for Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).
XML manipulation technologies: Manipulation technologies provide the capability to
extract and transform XML in different ways. These technologies play an important role
in server-based XML processing for business-to-business (B2B) data manipulation and
exchange. XSLT is widely used to transform XML from one format to another; XPath is
a technology used by other XML technologies to navigate through an XML tree structure
and zero in on particular elements or subtrees; XLink is a technology for creating and
describing links between resources and for enabling links that go beyond the simple
unidirectional links of the current Web; and XQuery is an evolving technology for
extracting and querying XML repositories.
Other related technologies: The XML family of technologies also includes initiatives for
working with metainformation, which is literally information about the information
contained in an XML document. Technologies in this space include RDF and InfoSet.

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The core of XML and its key components and extensions are:
XML 1.0 syntax, including Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
Namespaces in XML
XML Schema (or one of its alternatives or supplemental validation tools: XDR, SOX,
RELAX, TREX, and The Schematron)
Some of the key features that are commonly required in XML applications.
Describing XML data structure: The XML Information Set (XML Infoset) and XML
Path Language (XPath)
Navigating & Linking: XML Linking (XLink), XML Pointer Language (XPointer),
XML Inclusions (XInclude), XML Fragment Interchange (XFI), and XML Query
Language (XQuery).
Transforming & Presenting: XSLT and XSL-FO (XSL Formatting Objects)
8.XML Namespaces:
Namespaces eliminates the ambiguity of the same name from different providers.
When developing xml documents, it is common to refer to element and attribute names that share
a common context as vocabulary. The possibility arises that an element or attribute in that
vocabulary may have a name that is identical to an element or attribute used by someone else in a
different vocabulary.
XML namespaces is a simple technology solution that allows element and attribute names to be
distinguished from the similarly named elements and attributes of other XML users. XML
namespace solve this ambiguity problem by associating explicit namespace (or vocabulary) with
elements and attributes in XML document. Thus a namespace is essentially a set of names in
which all the elements and attribute names can be guaranteed to be unique.
Figure 2.3 illustrates how a namespace may be used to disambiguate duplicate element names.
XML namespaces solves the problem of clashing names by providing for a unique prefix to be
attached to the beginning of element and attribute names. In practice, a company's Web address
is often used as the unique prefix, but technically the namespaces specification allows any
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) to be used. URIs are more general than the common Uniform
Resource Locator (URL) and include just about any unique name one wants to use. The usual
result, though, is that when namespaces are used in an XML document, the official element name
is actually a two-part name: the name of the XML namespace plus the name of the element or
attribute.

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Namespace Declarations
There are several ways to add a namespace to an XML document so that, when software is
processing XML data from ZwiftBooks, it will see ZwiftBooks elements as
http://www.zwiftbooks.com:title instead of just title. The simplest approach is to declare a
namespace in a top-level element and let all the elements and attributes under the top element
come under the scope of the namespace. For example, the following XML document adds a
ZwiftBooks namespace to an XML book description document.
<book xmlns="http://www.zwiftbooks.com">
<isbn>0-596-00058-8</isbn>
<title>XML in a Nutshell</title>
<author>Harold, Elliotte Rusty</author>
</book>

In this example, the namespace declaration is applied to the book element by adding the
predefined attribute xmlns and giving as its value the unique URL of ZwiftBooks,
http://www.zwiftbooks.com. Because the xmlns attribute appears in the book element, all
subelements (isbn, title, and author) are included in the namespace.
Example 2:
This XML document carries information in a table:
<table>
<tr>
<td>Apples</td>
<td>Bananas</td>
</tr>
</table>

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This XML document carries information about a table (a piece of furniture):


<table>
<name>African Coffee Table</name>
<width>80</width>
<length>120</length>
</table>
If these two XML documents were added together, there would be an element name conflict
because both documents contain a <table> element with different content and definition.
Using Namespace to avoid conflict:
This XML document carries information in a table:
<h:table xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/">
<h:tr>
<h:td>Apples</h:td>
<h:td>Bananas</h:td>
</h:tr>
</h:table>
This XML document carries information about a piece of furniture:
<f:table xmlns:f="http://www.w3schools.com/furniture">
<f:name>African Coffee Table</f:name>
<f:width>80</f:width>
<f:length>120</f:length>
</f:table>
Instead of using only prefixes, we have added an xmlns attribute to the <table> tag to give the
prefix a qualified name associated with a namespace.
Figure 2.4 illustrates the use of multiple namespaces within the same document and how
namespaces are useful in distinguishing which elements are which. In this example, the top-level
element, supercatalog, is in its own namespace. Its two book subelements, technically within
the scope of the supercatalog namespace declaration, define their own namespaces, so that we
end up with three namespaces within the XML.

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Namespace Abbreviations
Namespace abbreviations may be used to simplify writing and reading the XML. The
namespaces specification also makes it possible to use abbreviations for namespaces in order to
make XML documents more readable. Figure 2.5 shows how we can define a shortcut name,
zbooks, so that anywhere that zbooks appears in a document, a software program processing the
document will replace it with the actual namespace, http://www.zwiftbooks.com.

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9. XML Vs EDI
EDI or Electronic Data Interchange is the exchange of information in a standard format between
computers without any human intermediary
It's difficult to define XML (eXtensible Markup Language) in one sentence because of its dual
function as a scripting language and a file format.
Both EDI and XML formats are structured to describe the data they contain. The main
difference would be that the EDI structure has a record-field-like layout of data segments and
elements, which makes the EDI file shorter, but not easily understandable; while the XML
format has tags, which is more easily understood, but making the file bigger and verbose.
EDI
Need defined rules
Structure is implicit
Machine to Machine interaction
Widely used in large industries
Expensive for SMEs
Conversion capable for WWW

XML
Need defined rules
Structure is explicit
Both Machine to Machine and Machine to
Human interaction
Widely used in large industries
Cost effective for SMEs
WWW enabled

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