Appendix : XML for Visual Studio .NET Access Developers

Overview

As a Microsoft Access or Microsoft Visual Basic developer, you might be wondering, Why is there so much excitement surrounding XML? The answer to that question has more to do with XML s adoption and endorsement by so many industry forces than its features. Nevertheless, XML s features are interesting, and they probably enticed many computing industry forces to develop solutions built with and around XML technologies.

In spite of all the enthusiasm tool developers have for XML, many application developers have little to no XML background. These application developers are not lazy. They are just busy performing the practical, everyday tasks that make computers an essential part of the world s economy. If you are an application developer with limited XML experience, this appendix is for you. Although the presentation starts with the basics, the content includes coverage of how to accomplish meaningful tasks with XML.

This appendix has four sections. First, it introduces you to XML design features. The two primary goals of this section are to acquaint you with the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET XML Designer and familiarize you with the difference between elements and attributes. Next, the focus shifts to schemas. This section shows you how to create, edit, and use schemas for simple tables. You will be pleasantly surprised by how easy and valuable these techniques are. Third, we will examine using XML documents and schemas with Visual Basic .NET. This section closes with a sample that populates an ADO.NET dataset from an XML document. The fourth and final section shows you how to graphically create a Relation object indicating a parent-child link in a schema for two DataTable objects. Then, the sample demonstrates how to use the graphically created Relation object programmatically.