Some useful links and introductory info assembled by Joe Orr - Under Construction, of course. When I add some nice formatting and design to this page, you'll know I've run out of useful updates. Last update 11/12/00.
Some other definitions:
Simple Examples:
A really simple xml file. If you look at this with IE 4+ it will be conveniently displayed as collapsible tree. To see what the raw xml looks like, right click on the page and choose View Source.
A DTD for the above xml file. You don't have to create a DTD for you XML, but it can help if you want to shared this XML with other people. The DTD doesn't tell anyone what the tags mean, but it does specify the syntax (the list of allowed element names and what content they can contain).
An XML Schema for the above xml file. DTDs are actually completely obsolete, despite the fact that lots of effort is still going into building new ones. They are being replaced by XML Schema which are much better suited to describing XML vocabularies.
Do you need to learn both DTDs and XML Schema? Maybe not. You can use XMLAuthority to generate either from a sample xml file. You may need to learn a bit more in order to tweak the resulting files, but XMLAuthority is a great tool both for saving time and for learning how to write DTDs and Schemas.
More Examples:
An XML file
for a Screenbook. (This XML is transformed
via XLST into this
screenbook. See my XSLT Resource
page for more info about this process.)
MISMO (The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintainance Organization) is developing a number of complex DTDs. Here is one of the MISMO DTDs and here is a sample XML file for that DTD (generated by XMLAuthority).
An example of RELML (Real Estate Markup Language).
General Resource and Information Sites:
XML.com A very useful site with news and tutorials
for all levels. Check this one at least once a week.
XMLmag.com Another good general site.
XML Journal
Xmlu XML Training.
XML Resource Guide (XML.com)
MSDN XML site (Microsoft)
Excellent info and tools for XML on Microsoft platforms.
Sun's XML site
Other reference pages:
XML Database
Products
DTDs and Schemas (XML Vocabularies):
Repositories:
Some interesting DTDs:
Books:
Professional
XML Comprehensive coverage of XML.
Building Websites with XML Good introduction and overview for people who
already know HTML and other web technologies.
XML
in a Nutshell Not published at time of this writing, but looks like it will
be useful.
Java
and XML Very well written guide to Java and XML.
XML
Handbook This is the third edition. At the time of this writing I've ordered
this but not received it. Previous editions got VERY mixed reviews at Amazon.
Enterprise
Applications Integration with XML and Java I've also ordered this and not
yet received it.
Software:
Applications:
Application lists: