What Is in This Book

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This book provides a detailed discussion of what XML is and how it can be used to build a Digital Nervous System (DNS) using the Microsoft Windows DNA framework with SOAP 1.1, BizTalk Framework 2.0, and Internet Explorer 5. The book is divided into two parts. Part I covers all the essential elements of XML and enterprise devel-opment using SOAP and BizTalk. Part II covers XML and Windows DNA. It discusses how to use Internet Explorer 5 and the Windows DNA framework to build enter-prise systems. Throughout the book, you will find code samples that will bring all the ideas together.

Part I: Introducing XML

Chapter 1 discusses how XML fits within the enterprise. It provides an overview of DNS, XML, and knowledge workers and includes a discussion of where XML solutions fit into the DNS.

Chapter 2 gives a general overview of markup languages. The chapter begins with a brief history of markup languages. Next, the three most important markup languages are discussed: Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and XML.

Chapter 3 covers the basic structure of an XML document. Topics include XML elements, attributes, comments, processing instructions, and well-formed docu-ments. Some of the more common XML tools will be discussed and demonstrated in this chapter.

Chapter 4 introduces the document type definition (DTD). The DTD is an optional document that can be used to define the structure of XML documents. This chapter provides an overview of DTDs, discusses the creation of valid documents, and de-scribes the DTD syntax and how to create XML document structures using DTDs.

Chapter 5 examines DTD entities. This chapter shows you how to declare exter-nal, internal, general, and parameter entities and how these entities will be expanded in the XML document and the DTD.

Chapter 6 covers four of the specifications that support XML: XML Namespaces, XML Path Language (XPath), XML Pointer Language (XPointer), and XML Linking Language (XLink). This chapter provides an overview of namespaces, including why they are important and how to declare them. The chapter will also cover how XPath, XLink, and XPointers can be used to locate specific parts of an XML document and to create links in an XML document.

Chapter 7 covers XML schemas. This chapter discusses some of the shortcomings of DTDs, what a schema is, and the elements of a schema.

Chapter 8 is all about SOAP, version 1.1. This chapter covers the problems associated with firewalls and procedure calls and using SOAP for interoperability. Examples demonstrate how to use SOAP in enterprise solutions.

Chapter 9 examines the BizTalk Framework 2.0. A detailed discussion of BizTalk tags and BizTalk schemas is provided. The next generation of products that will support BizTalk is also discussed. The rest of the chapter focuses on using BizTalk in enterprise solutions.

Part II: XML and Windows DNA

Chapter 10 provides an overview of the Windows DNA framework and the two fun-damental models of the Windows DNA framework: the logical and physical models. This chapter focuses on the logical three-tier model, which is defined by the services performed by components of the system. These services fall into three basic catego-ries: user services components, business services components, and data services components. The chapter ends with a discussion of Windows DNA system design.

Chapter 11 covers the majority of the objects in the XML Document Object Model (DOM). This chapter examines how to use the DOM and provides numerous code samples showing how to work with the DOM objects. The DOM objects not covered in Chapter 11 are discussed in Chapter 12.

Chapter 12 discusses how to present XML data in a Web browser using Exten-sible Stylesheet Language (XSL), how to transform XML documents using XSL Trans-formations (XSLT), and how to build static user services components using XML. The rest of the chapter examines XSL and XSLT support in the XML DOM and program-ming with XSL and XSLT.

Chapter 13 covers the creation of dynamic Web-based user services components using Dynamic HTML (DHTML) and the XML Data Source Object (DSO) available in Internet Explorer 5. This chapter will discuss how to use DHTML to create user services components that can respond directly to input from users. The rest of the chapter covers how to use the XML DSO to work directly with XML data embed-ded in HTML code.

Chapter 14 examines how XML can be used to build business services compo-nents. This chapter shows you how to create business services components using HTML Components (HTC).

Chapter 15 explores using XML in the data services component. This chapter discusses using ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) with XML, the Microsoft XML SQL Server Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) extension, and the XSL ISAPI extension. The SQL ISAPI extension allows data in a SQL Server 6.5 or 7.0 database to be retrieved directly through Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) as XML. The XSL ISAPI extension allows XSL documents to be automatically converted to XML when a browser other than Internet Explorer 5 requests data.

Chapter 16 introduces Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000. BizTalk Server 2000 allows corporations to pass information within the corporation and between the corpora-tion and its partners using XML.