Adopting XML as a Data Interchange Format

graphics/new.gif

Microsoft's primary selling point for Office 2003 is the capability of Word, Excel, and Access to export and import documents and data in Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0. Structured documents and relational data stored as XML files can be exchanged between multiple business applications running under different operating systems. Interchangeability is the driving force behind the wide-spread adoption of XML as the 21st-century standard for sharing information.

Microsoft's stated goal for Office 2003 is to make XML an "open standards" alternative to proprietary Microsoft file formats. For example, Access can import structured XML documents such as resumes, employee performance review, or expense reports prepared in Word 2003 to relational data stored in a Jet or SQL Server database. The key to the document import process is a consistent document structure that's defined by a schema. (The next section defines XML schemas). Access interprets the schema to determine the tables and fields in which to store the data contained in the document's elements. The same schema supports exporting the documents back to Word.

graphics/new.gif

Excel 2002 provided a few XML features and Access 2002 introduced importing and exporting XML-encoded data to and from Jet and SQL Server tables. Access 2002 was limited to import/export of flat (non-relational) data. Access 2003 now handles hierarchical XML representations of relational data. This new feature lets you export documents from related tables to create multiple tables from a single XML document and schema. In some cases, you can append records to multiple tables from an XML document.

This chapter begins with definitions of important XML terms and then covers the use of XML documents exported by Access to generate HTML documents for deployment on intranets and the Internet. Sections at the end of the chapter describe exporting and importing XML data documents, generating and using XML schemas, and transforming XML data with custom XSLT files.

Tip

If you're only interested in the end result and want to defer learning the underpinnings of Access 2003's XML features, skip to the "Exporting Static Reports as XML" section.




Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Access 2003
Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Access 2003
ISBN: 0789729520
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 417

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net