Use data dictionary links for XML and Web services schemata
33462Use data dictionary links for XML and Web services schematahttp://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-tipdict.html?ca=dgr-xw766x-tipdictIn my Thinking XML column, I frequently focus on how various industries are working toward semantic transparency, which is the shared meaning of at least the framework of what is communicated in an XML document. Either the industries do so by creating complete document formats along with the semantics of all the elements, attributes, and content, or they define terms and concepts discretely and individually, independently of the documents in which they would appear. I call these approaches top-down and bottom-up, respectively, and very active communities provide useful material on each.XML > Tips and Tutorials > Introduction to XMLOct 17, 2006
Operating systems -- and in particular their GUIs -- maintain structured, persistent data through a variety of mechanisms and in a variety of formats. Windows versions used INI files, then moved to a binary (and unified) registry; eariler versions of Mac OS had resource forks in the file system and a desktop file for its Finder; Linux and other UNIX-like systems typically used dotted, hidden files in home directories, with configuration detailed in dozens of incompatible ways between window managers and applications.
The Java APIs for XML-Based Remote Procedure Call (JAX-RPC) protocol (see Resources) is Java-centric, not WSDL-centric. It contains a fairly elaborate set of rules for mapping WSDL names to Java-friendly names which follow the Java coding conventions. This is good because JAX-RPC users will be Java programmers. In fact, they may not even care that your Web service is a Web service. They probably do not know or care about WSDL and XML, and all the quirks that they bring to the table. All they may care about is that they can write Java code to call your service and expect the JAX-RPC APIs for your service to look familiar; in other words, to follow Java coding conventions.
XML started strong and has grown quite rapidly. It has proven itself a very valuable technology, but it can be an intimidating one, when one considers all the moving parts that fall under the term "XML". In this series of articles, I provide a summary of what I see as the most important XML technologies, and discuss how they each fit into the greater scope of things in the XML world. I also recommend tutorials and other useful resources for evaluating and learning to use each technology.
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is not a programming language. Like HTML (and sharing a common parentage - but that's another story), XML is a means of 'marking up' the content of a document using elements (sometimes referred to as tags) to mark the beginning and end of sections of information.
XML is a markup language. The mighty ones who created this acronym cheated a little, as XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. XML was released in the late 90's and received a great amount of hype. The XML standard was created by W3C to provide an easy to use and standardized way to store self-describing data (self-describing data is data that describes both its content and its structure).
Joining mailing list will entitle you
to receive occasional emails informing you of news and
updates to the site and any special offers that may be
of interest to you.