XML Introduction

Duration: 4 days | Price: Contact a Career Consultant for pricing

Students Will Learn:
  • XML Syntax
  • DTDs and Schemas
  • Namespaces and Scoping
  • XSLT and XPath
  • XSL Format Objects

Description: This hands on XML course presents a thorough introduction to creating, validating, transforming, and formatting XML data. The course covers structuring data with XML; validating that data with document type definitions (DTDs) and schemas; creating and viewing XML documents; and transforming XML documents with the XML Stylesheet Language (XSL, XSLT and XPATH). Extensive examples and demos are provided, as well as comprehensive hands on lab exercises that reinforce the concepts being taught and introduce the practical application of XML to business problems.

Students interested in additional coverage of programming issues including Web Services, DOM parsing, and SAX parsing should instead register for the 5 day XML Programming class.

Prerequisites: Basic HTML knowledge. Attendance at the course Web Site Development with HTML/JavaScript is sufficient to meet prerequisites for this course.

XML Introduction Course Overview:

The Need for XML
  • Structured Data and Formatting
  • The Need for Structured Data
  • The Need for Richer Formatting Control
  • Advantages of XML
  • XML as an International Standard
  • SGML, XML, and HTML
  • World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Specifications and Grammars
  • XML Applications and Tools
  • Creating and Viewing XML Documents
 XML Document Syntax
  • The Concept of Well-Formedness
  • Well-Formed Structure
  • Elements and Tags
  • The XML Declaration
  • Editing and Viewing XML Documents
  • The Document Type Declaration
  • Start and End Tags
  • Empty Tags
  • Element Nesting
  • Element Attributes
  • Comments
  • Special Characters and Built-In Entities
  • CDATA Sections
  • Embedded XML
  • External XML
  • XML Parsers
  • Displaying Data in Tables Using DHTML
Validating XML Documents with DTDs
  • The Concept of Data Validation
  • Writing Document Type Definition (DTD) Files
  • Internal and External DTDs
  • Validating Parsers
  • The !DOCUMENT Tag
  • Specifying Valid Elements and Subelements
  • Specifying Valid Attributes
  • Specifying Valid Entities
  • Specifying Parameter Entities
  • The CDATA Type
  • The ID, IDREF, and IDREFS Types
  • The ENTITY and ENTITIES Types
  • The NMTOKEN and NMTOKENS Types
  • The NOTATION Type
  • Enumerations
  • Conditional Sections
  • Creating Internal DTDs
  • Linking External DTDs to XML Documents
  • Validation Tools
Validating XML Documents with Schemas
  • Schema Design Goals (Limitations of DTDs)
  • Mixing DTDs and Schemas
  • Resolving Name Conflicts with Namespaces
  • Schema Composition
  • Linking Schemas to XML Documents
  • Annotation Declarations
  • Element Declarations
  • Attribute Declarations
  • W3C Schema Data Types
  • Specifying Simple Types
  • Regular Expressions
  • Working with User-Defined Data Types
  • Union and List Types
  • Specifying Complex Types
  • Deriving Complex Types Using Inheritance
  • Reusable Groups
  • Substitution Groups
  • Identity Elements
  • Validating Uniqueness
  • Validating Required Fields
  • Combining and Redefining Schemas
Transforming XML Documents with XSLT and XPath
  • The Limitations of CSS
  • XSL Stylesheet Advantages
  • Transformation vs. Formatting
  • XSLT and XSL-FO
  • XSLT Templates
  • XPath Data Model
  • Declaring XSL Stylesheets
  • Built-In Templates
  • Using Templates as Subroutines – xsl:apply-templates
  • XPath Expression Syntax
  • XPath Functions and Predicates
  • Inserting Elements – xsl:element
  • Inserting Attributes – xsl:attribute
  • Extracting Node Values – xsl:value-of
  • Looping – xsl:for-each
  • Sorting - The order-by Attribute
  • Simple Conditionals – xsl:if
  • Multiple Conditionals – xsl:choose, xsl:when, and xsl:otherwise
  • Copying Nodes – xsl:copy
  • Modular Design Using Named Templates
  • Rendering HTML Using XSLT and CSS
  • XML-to-XML Transformations
XML Namespaces
  • The Need for Namespaces
  • Specifying a Namespace
  • URLs, URIs, and URNs
  • Qualifying Names
  • Namespace Scoping
  • The HTML Namespace
  • Additional Significant Namespaceses

Formatting XML Documents with XSL-FO

  • XML Documents with XSL-FO
  • Purpose of XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO)
  • XSL-FO Documents and XSL-FO Processors
  • XSL-FO Namespace
  • Page Format Specifiers
  • Page Content Specifiers
  • Presentation Conversion

Student Testimonials

"I very much enjoyed the class and knowing nothing of XML beforehand, I am leaving the class with a lot of knowledge and a good understanding of the basic concepts. Our instructor was very knowledgeable and did an excellent job leading the class."
– M.O., Chicago Mercantile Exchange

"The instructor is very knowledgeable and does a good job of making sure that students comprehend the material. Her 'real world' experience in the field added value to this training. "
– P.R., Michigan State University

"The instructor was professional and held everyone's interest throughout the course. He was clear and made understanding technical concepts easy. Great skills!"
– S.S., USAF

Hands On Technology Transfer, Inc.
1 Village Square, Suite 8
14 Fletcher Street
Chelmsford, MA 01824
1-800-413-0939 | 1-978-250-4299

Copyright© 2008 Hands On Technology Transfer, Inc.