XML Data Sources

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a relatively new technology that came on the scene in 1998. XML has experienced much more attention recently because of the introduction of XML Web Services with Microsoft's .NET Framework. FrontPage 2003 is the first version of FrontPage that provides the capability to use XML data natively in the user interface. However, in order to do so, your site must be hosted on a server running Windows SharePoint Services.

For more information on Windows SharePoint Services, see "Windows SharePoint Services 2.0," p. 943.

Listing 34.1 shows a simple example of an XML file.

Listing 34.1 An Example XML File

 <?xml version ="1.0"?> <AddressBook>     <Contact ID=1>         <firstName="Jack" />         <lastName="Smith" />         <address="252 Any Street" />         <city="Ft Worth" />         <state="TX" />     </Contact>     <Contact ID=2>         <firstName="Joe" />         <lastName="Johnson" />         <address="432 Some Street" />         <city="Portland" />         <state="OR" /> </AddressBook> 

Unlike a technology such as HTML that describes how data should be displayed, XML simply categorizes data and provides a description of the data. Developers can then use the XML in many different ways whether in a Web page or a Windows application. As you will see when we discuss XML Web Services in Chapter 38, "FrontPage and Web Parts," XML is a great solution for accessing raw data.

As seen in Listing 34.1, an XML file is somewhat like a database. It contains a series of name/value pairs that describe data. This makes it ideal for use as a data source in FrontPage. FrontPage connects to XML files within the current Web site. If the XML file you attempt to use does not reside in the current Web site, FrontPage will prompt you to import it.

FrontPage 2003 has the capability to not only use XML files for data sources, but, as you will see later, it can also use XML Web Services as data sources. These new capabilities provide an exciting new era in FrontPage data access.