Hi Vikas,

Xml (eXtensible Markup Language)is a document to contain data from a program for another program. It is a file to store any amount of data in an organized manner. An xml document can be transferred from one place to another in a network. Hence it provides portability. The xml document contains the data as the values of tags and attributes. An xml document contains the data through the user-defined tags and attributes.

 

1.we can extend our ability to write the language using user-defined tags.

2.Xml is a cross platform, software and hardware independent markup language.

3.It is used to store data in a format that can be interpreted by any other computer system.

4.It is used to transfer structure data between heterogeneous systems.

5.It is used to retrieve data.

6.It has been developed by W3C (World wide web consortium)

 

Possible contents of Xml document

 

1.PI (processing instructions)

2.Tags

3.Elements

4.Attribute

5.Contents

6.Entities

7.Comments

 

PI: -This is optional. It determines the xml version, encoding. It starts and ends with a question mark.

Ex: -

This is the first statement in the xml document

UTF- UCS (universal character set) transformation format

UTF-8: - It supports 8 bits character set (eg.English)

UTF-16: - It supports 16 bits character set (eg.Japanese)

 

Tags: - They are used to specify the name and information. It contains angular brackets in pairs line<> also ends with followed by the element.

 

Elements: - They are used to identify the type of data. This contains the data. Each tag present in the xml document is called as element.

Ex:- Raj here name is element.

 

Content:- They are respective information of the elements.

Ex:- Raj here Raj is content.

 

It is of three types they are

 

1.Character content

2.Element content

3.Mixed content

Attributes: - It provides additional information to the elements. An attribute can be optional or mandatory. An optional attribute can have default value.

 

Ex: - Mobile phones Here prodid is the attribute.

 

Entities:- This is a word to represent special symbols and a piece of text. This must be used in between & and; .It provides a shortcut to a set of information.

 

Ex: - The price of this product is >3000

Here > represent greater than.

 

Comments:- These are remark statements or these are used to explain the code.It starts with exclamation followed by two hypens and end with two hypens.

 

 

If an xml document satisfies all predefined rules then it is know as Welformed xml documents. The predefined rules are as follows

 

1.All elements must be enclosed in a root element.

2.The cases of the letters present in starting and ending tag must match.

3.All tags must have the heading tags.

4.All attribute value must be enclosed with in "/".

 

Ex: -

Raj

Kumar

bestfriend

 

DTD (Document type definition)

 

1.It defines the structure of the content of xml document.

2.In DTD we specify various elements, attributes. This is similar to creation columns in a table.

3.It is similar to designing the table in the database.

 

Elements:- It defines the fields present in the Xml documents.

Syntax:-

Element name- It specifies the name of the content.

Content type or content model- It determines whether the elements contains textual data or character data.

 

Rules for naming elements

 

1.It can contain letters, digits, underscore (_), hyphen (-) and period (.)

2.it must start with letters or underscore.

3.We can't start with digits or hyphens or periods.

4.Any other symbol or character apart from this is not possible.

 

Types of Elements

 

Empty:- It does not contains any elements

 

Syntax:-

 

Unrestricted:- It contains any type of data

 

Syntax:-

 

 

Container:- It contains character data as well as element.

 

Syntax:-

              

 

Content type:- It specify the type of content            the element can contain without having sub elements.

 

#EMPTY:- The element will not have separate ending tag.

 

#PCDATA:- The element will contain the text in between starting and ending tags which needs parsing.

 

#CDATA:- The element will contain the text in between starting and ending tags which need not to be parsed.

 

 

Occurrence type:- It specify the rule for appearance of sub element

 

Symbol

*: - The sub element becomes optional

+: - The sub element must appear at least once and can appear more than once.

No symbol: - It must appear once and only once.

 

 

Attribute

 

It provides additional information to the element.

 

 

Value type is divided into three types

 

PCDATA :- It specifies value type as character data.

 

ID :- It specifies that value type as unique.

 

Enumerated:- It specifies a range of values for the attribute.

 

Ex:-

 

 

Here

 

Product- Element

Proid- Attribute

Id-value type

Color (blue/green)- Enumerated

Blue-default value

 

Attribute type

 

#REQUIRED: - It specifies that an attribute contains required value or the value is compulsory.

 

#FIXED: - It specifies that attribute contains fixed value it can't be changed.

 

#IMPLIED: - It specifies that attribute contains optional value.

 

 

 

Type of DTD

 

They are of two types internal and external

 

Internal

 

1.This is a part of xml document.

2.It is used for the xml document in which it is present.

 

External

 

1.This is not a part of xml document.

2.It can be used across multiple documents.

 

Thanks