XML Basics

This lecture provides a gentle introduction and overview of XML covering the rationale, syntax, applications, separation of content from presentation, document type definition (DTD), XML schemas and namespaces.

Lecture Slides

XML 1 PowerPoint
or as 2 separate files
XML - Introduction PowerPoint 246k
XML - DTDs, Schemas and Namespaces PowerPoint 159k

Examples from the lecture

books.xml our first XML example
books.html why does the browser display our first XML example differently is we give it a different filename?
books-css.xml our first XML example with a CSS file books.css
pi.xml Three XML languages together - XHTML, SVG and MathML
xhtml.html a fancier example using CSS with extended XHTML
books.dtd will not display in a browser
greek.html try this fun JavaScript page to see more character references

DTDs
- goodBooks1.xml and goodBooks1.dtd
- goodBooks2.xml and goodBooks2.dtd

XML Schemas
- goodBooks3.xml and goodBooks3.xsd

Note that your browser may not like you clicking on the css or dtd links. In which case you may need to right click and download the files.

Tutorial exercises

Remember that these exercises are an important part of the course and relvant to your coursework.

Some tutorial answers

before you follow these links it is probably a good idea that you at least make some attempt to solve the tutorial questions yourself

XML - The Basics

Lecture Slides

Examples from the lecture

Tutorial exercises

Some tutorial answers

Some XML resources