B.5 Programming

DOM

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The Document Object Model is a general API for XML parsing. W3C

Status

DOM Level 2 became a W3C Recommendation in November 2000, and is composed of five specifications:

DOM2 Core Specification

http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Core/

DOM2 Views Specification

http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Views/

DOM2 Events Specification

http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Events/

DOM2 Style Specification

http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Style/

DOM2 Traversal and Range Specification

http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Traversal-Range/

Work on DOM Level 3 is in progress. More information on DOM Level 3 (which notably adds XPath and Load and Save support) is available at http://www.w3.org/DOM/.

Description

DOM Level 2 is a platform and language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content and structure of documents. The DOM Level 2 Core builds on the DOM Level 1 Core, and consists of a set of core interfaces that create and manipulate the structure and contents of a document. The Core also contains specialized interfaces dedicated to XML.

SAX

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The Simple API for XML is a free API for event-based XML parsing. saxproject.org

Status

SAX was collaboratively developed by the XML-DEV mailing list (hosted by OASIS). The current release is SAX 2.0, dated May 2000. SAX is maintained by David Brownell at http://www.saxproject.org/.

Description

SAX2 is an event-based API. SAX2 introduces configurable features and properties and adds support for XML Namespaces. It also includes adapters that allow it to interoperate with SAX1 parsers and applications.

Canonical XML

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A standard representation of XML documents for signatures. W3C/IETC

Status

Canonical XML was collaboratively developed by the W3C and IETF. There are two current Recommendations: the March 2001 Canonical XML 1.0, at http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n, and the July 2002 Exclusive XML Canonicalization Version 1.0, at http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-exc-c14n.

Description

Canonical XML is designed to remove all the syntactical variations of XML documents and produce a single representation which can be used reliably for tasks like checksums and signatures.

XML Signature

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A standard representation of XML documents for signatures. W3C/IETC

Status

XML Signature was collaboratively developed by the W3C and IETF. The February 2002 XML-Signature Syntax and Processing is published at http://www.w3.org/TR/xmldsig-core/.

Description

XML Signature is designed to provide unique identifiers for XML documents which can then be used in other XML-based projects, notably security projects.