XML - eXtensible Markup Language

1
XML - eXtensible Markup Language

• Who Am I?
• Name Jared Rypka-Hauer
• Owner Continuum Media Group, LLC
• Adobe Community Expert ColdFusion
• 9 years ColdFusion Experience

2
XML Bootcamp What and How

• What is XML?
• Why XML?
• ColdFusion and XML
• Summary
• Links

3
What is XML?

• eXtensible Markup Language
• Universally readable by computers and humans (at
  least in theory!)
• Focuses on the rules for describing content
• No restrictions on content (except...)
• Basic concepts
• Elements
• Attributes
• Entities
• lt!CDATA...gt sections

4
What is XML? (continued)

• Basic rules
• All tags must be closed
• ...except! Self-closing tags
• No forbidden characters
• Use entities or CDATA
• lt is lt
• gt is gt
• is amp
• lt!CDATAor you can use this it works too!gt
• Other characters are in the references links at
  the end
• Documents must have a root element that wraps
  everything else in the document
• A valid xml document can be as little as
• ltrootgtlttag1gtsomecontentlt/tag1gtlt/rootgt

5
Example Document

• ltrootgt
• ltuser isadminfalse sendemailfalsegt
• ltfirstnamegtJoelt/firstnamegt
• ltlastnamegtSmithlt/lastnamegt
• ltemailgtjoesmith_at_example.comlt/emailgt
• ltsetting namesendemail valuefalse /gt
• lt/usergt
• lt/rootgt

6
Why XML?

• Structured
• Parsable
• Can be converted into objects
• In the CF world structures and arrays
• Universal
• Java, CF, .NET, PHP, ActionScript
• RSS, AJAX, Microsoft Office, SQL Server
• ANYTHING that has a need for structured data
• Simple for Beginnners
• Extremely flexible and powerful for advanced
  users
• Portable

7
Why XML? (continued)

• Searchable
• XPath (demo tonight)
• XQuery (no demo tonight)
• Not supported by CF yet
• A mix of very familiar concepts
• Directories on disk
• Database tables
• HTML!! (yeah, I thought that looked familiar!)
• Stylable
• XLT and XSLT
• Perhaps a brief demo tonight
• Extensions
• VERY POWERFUL and yet very simple

8
ColdFusion and XML

• Built-in Functions
• xmlParse(xmlString)
• xmlSearch(XPath,xmlObject)
• isXml(xmlString)
• isXmlObj(variable)
• Elements are Arrays
• Attributes are Structs
• Live Demo code and examples

9
Links

• XML Functions in ColdFusion
• http//www.techfeed.net/cfQuickDocs/?getDocXML
• W3Schools
• http//www.w3schools.com/xml/
• Entities http//w3schools.com/html/html_entities.
  asp
• My Blog
• http//www.web-relevant.com/blogs/cfobjective/inde
  x.cfm?modeentryentry3B6B32E0-BDB9-5320-E255C424
  B74AC2F8
• http//www.web-relevant.com/blogs/cfobjective/inde
  x.cfm?modeentryentry4C9A9E20-BDB9-5320-E49EBA53
  24E02DB3
• Tools
• http//xmlbuddy.com/
• http//www.eclipse.org/webtools/wst/main.html
• http//www.oxygenxml.com/ (pricey!)