Chapter 12: Some Advanced XML Standards

Overview

Many of the advanced standards of XML are not essentially database-specific , but more front-end application coding-specific. Whereas your database stores your data, your front-end application is made up of the screens you use to communicate with that database.

So, topics such as XLink, XPointer, and XForms may not at first seem quite relevant to this text. However, in order to do XML justice , we have to at least touch on both database and application XML capabilities. And as you shall see in this chapter, front-end applications can sometimes be very closely related to database content. This is especially true in the case of XML documents, where an XML document can be both database and application driver. An XML document can be a database in itself (a native XML database). Additionally, application coding using tools such as XLink, XPointer, and XForms can generate front-end application display screens using XML document content. That XML document content is, of course, the very same native XML database.

There are no Try It Out sections in this chapter as the content of this chapter is primarily concep tual, but also introductory with respect to native XML database standards.

In this chapter you learn about:

• Generating links between XML documents using XLink

• Generating links between XML document fragments using XPointer

• How simple type XLinks link one XML document to another

• How extended type XLinks link many XML documents to many other XML documents

• The XForms model and how it generates entry screens

• All the aspects and capabilities of XForms

• How XForms binds display objects directly to the content of XML documents

• How XInclude merges multiple XML documents together