XML uses UTF-8 by default. For an explanation of the various character sets, including ASCII, HTML, and UTF, see
A data island is an <xml> element within an HTML document. Microsoft's InternetExplorer can parse data islands with its MSXML parser.
DOM is an in-memory, document object model for XML documents.
FOR XML is a Microsoft SQL Server extension for generating XML results from SQL queries.
OPENXML is a Microsoft SQL Server extension to insert rowsets from an XML document. Use it for small documents up to 50 KB in size.
XML Bulk Load is a COM component for loading database tables from XMLM.
XLink is an attribute-based syntax for attaching links to XML documents.
XML is a document markup standard, based on SGML.
Use XPath to return node sets from an XML document.
For .NET programming, see
XPathDocument is an optimized DOM model for processing XPATH expressions. Use CreateNavigator() to create an XPathNavigator object.
XPointer allows XPATH references in URLs.
XSD is the prefered XML schema format. It replaces DTD and XDR.
For programming .NET with XSD (e.g., SOAP) see
XSL-FO is an XML syntax for describing page layout.
CSS is a non-XML syntax for page layout
XSLT is an XML standard for transforming XML documents into XML, HTML, and text.
XSLT 2.0- will have many useful extensions, see
For .NET programming, see
.NET allows embedded scripts inside XSL files. msxsl:script supersedes their xsl:eval extension.
MSXML is an older COM module for processing XML. It includes support for XSD, XML Schema and XPath.
An XML entity names a string value, e.g., &author;. It is defined within a !DOCTYPE node, e.g., <!DOCTYPE book [<!ENTITY author "Dino Esposito">]> It requires a XmlValidatingReader.
SAX is an event-based API for XML documents
SOAP is an XML standard for invoking web services.
For programming SOAP in .NET see
NameTable stores atomized strings for XMLDocument and XMLTextReader. Much faster than string comparisons.
.Net offers a variety of XML-enabled classes:
.NET Remoting is a non-XML alternative to SOAP. It is highly optimized for .NET-to-.NET communications, and replaces DCOM.
XML Document is a DOM, memory-based representation of an XML document or fragment. It is a hierarchical structure of elements, attributes, and other nodes. See the .Net class XMLDocument. It is used for:
An XMLReader presents a stream input as a sequence of nodes. Use XMLReader for
An XMLWriter writes stream output as well-formed XML.
Tidwell, O'Reilly 2001
Tidwell developed IBM's Toot-o-matic for IBM Tutorials. It generates HTML, PDF, ZIP, and JPEG files from one XML file. It's a good demonstration of XSLT, XSL:FO, and FOP. [page 212-236]
Appendix A, B, C contains a complete reference for XSLT and XPATH 1.0 with multiple examples illustrating each feature.
Esposito, Microsoft Press 2003
Thorough introduction to XML programming in .NET with best practices and lots of examples.
Fitzgerald, O'Reilly, 2004
Excellent, thorough introduction to XSLT. Lots of examples.
Foggon, Maharry, Ullman, Watson, Microsoft, 2004
Step by step introduction to web services. Includes SOAP, WSDL, DISCO, UDDI, HTTP, XML Streaming, serialization, XSD, web methods. ADO.NET, security, WS-* standards,
Harold, Means, O'Reilly 2002
Thorough introduction to XML including DTD, namespaces, XSLT, XPath, XLinks, XPointers, CSS, XSL-FO, RDDL, XSD, DOM, SAX
For XSLT and XPath,
Lenz, O'Reilly, 2005
Excellent reference guide to XSLT 1.0. Written from the XSLT specification.
Includes preliminary documentation on XSLT 2.0 -- a significant enhancement to XSLT.
Mangano, O'Reilly 2003
Advanced XSLT programming with lots of examples, many convoluted. Covers string manipuation, numbers and math, dates and times, XPATH, whitespace, XML transformation, XML queries, HTML generation, SVG generation, code generation, Visio VDX, Excel XML, SOAP WSDL documentation, XSLT extensions, testing, debugging, generic programming, and functional programming
Richter, Microsoft Press, 2002
Box, Skonnard, and Lam, Addison Wesley, 2000.
A general look at XML as a unifying technology.
Skonnard, Gudgin, Addison Wesley, 2001.
Annotated review of XML standards.
Stanek, W.R., Microsoft Press 2002.
Stanek's book on XML.