What are the core protocols/standards behind XML Web services?
XML (for message format), HTTP and others (for transport), WSDL (Web Service Definition Language, to describe the Web services and define the contract), and UDDI... Read more »
Archive for July, 2006
Why the XML Web service is such a hot topic in the industry right now? Is it just some hype, or does it have a real value behind it?
Google (Search Web service), Amazon (for Associates, store building), Microsoft (MapPoint.NET), and many other already offer and support XML Web services. Using... Read more »
Which is the best API to parse a huge XML document, to get parts of data from the XML document?
If the requirement is to “look-into” a huge XML document for some chunk of data, SAX would be better alternative. DOM load/unload of huge XML documents... Read more »
What is SAX?
Simple API for XML Processing (SAX) is an alternative to DOM, and can be used to parse XML documents. SAX is based on streaming model. The SAX parser reads input... Read more »
What is DOM?
Document Object Model (DOM) is a W3C specification that defines a standard (abstract) programming API to build, navigate and update XML documents. It is a “tree-structure-based”... Read more »
How are DTDs/XML Schemas important while building XML applications?
Document Type Definition (DTD) or XML Schema is used to define the structure and other constrains for the XML documents. If an XML document has an associated DTD/Schema,... Read more »
What is XSLT? And what’s its use?
XSL Transformations (XSLT) is yet another popular W3C specification that defines XML-based syntax, used to transform XML documents to any other text format, such... Read more »
What is XPath?
XML Path Language (XPath) is a W3C specification that defines syntax for addressing parts of XML document. XML document is considered as a logical tree structure,... Read more »
Is it possible to have characters from multiple encodings into a single XML document? If yes, how?
XML declaration line (and hence the encoding attribute) is optional in the XML document. The parser uses the first bytes (Unicode byte-order-mark) in the document... Read more »
Was XML created to replace databases, specifically RDBMS? Or will XML ever replace databases?
XML and “data” can be assumed to be synonymous, but XML was not created to replace traditional RDBMSs (Relational Database Management Systems), such... Read more »
What is XHTML?
Is simple words, XHTML, or Extensible HTML, is HTML 4 with XML rules applied to it (each begin tag must have an end tag, attribute values in single/double quotes,... Read more »
Was XML created to replace HTML? Or will XML ever replace HTML?
It is a fact that the problem with HTML is that combines “data” with the “presentation” details, but XML was not necessarily created to replace... Read more »
What is the use of Namespaces in XML?
As XML does not predefine any set of tags/attribute names. Hence, it is quite possible that two totally different XML documents, defined by two totally different... Read more »
Is it possible to include international character (such as Japanese, or Chinese) characters inside an XML document. If yes, how?
Yes, XML being a Unicode-text-based standard supports international characters. The encoding attribute value in the XML declaration line () needs to be properly... Read more »
If XML is all about “text” data, is it possible to include binary data (such as an image) in an XML document? If yes, how?
Yes, it is possible to include binary data as part of XML document. The binary data needs to be hex or base64 encoded. Most of the parsers and various XML tools... Read more »