Chapter 7 Managing XML: Transforming and Connecting

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Chapter 7Managing XML Transforming and
Connecting

• From Jim Melton and Stephen Buxton, Querying
  XML, Morgan Kaufmann, 2006

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7.1 Introduction

• XML documents interact in many ways with their
  environment.
• E.g., they can be transformed from one structure
  to a different structure, or they can be
  transformed into some user-friendly format such
  as HTML or PDF.
• They are frequently modularized to place some
  information into one physical resource (e.g., a
  file) and other information into a different
  resource.
• They reference one another in various ways, both
  simple and complex.

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7.2 Transforming, Formatting, and Displaying XML

• XML documents are not especially pretty to look
  at.
• The W3C has created two languages for "reshaping"
  documents in various ways.
• XSLT. for transforming the content and structure
  of XML documents into any of several other forms,
  including HTML or plain text, as well as new XML
  documents.
• XSL-FO provides a mechanism by which XML
  documents can be converted into formats suitable
  for printing or viewing, such as PostScript and
  PDF (or even Microsoft's Rich Text Format, RTF).
• This has to do with querying XML.

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7.2.1 Extensible Stylesheet Language
Transformations

• XSLT 1.0 depends on XPath 1.0 as the language in
  which search and matching criteria are expressed
  - that is, as its query language.
• XSLT 1.0 was one of the driving forces behind the
  development of XPath 1.0 and was arguably its
  most important "customer."
• At the same time that XPath 2.0 and XQuery 1.0
  were being developed, a new version of XSLT
  (known, naturally, as XSLT 2.0) 4 was being
  specified.
• The details of XSLT 2.0 differ in significant
  ways from those of XSLT 1.0, but the overall
  goals and mechanisms remain the same. XSLT 2.0
  adds XHTML to the choices of output methods.
• XSLT is a functional language without side
  effects.
• XSLT is a language expressed in XML,
• Namespace prefix "xsl".

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7.2.2 Extensible Stylesheet Language - Formatting
Objects (XSL FO)

• The original mission of the W3C's XSL Working
  Group was to define a true stylesheet language
  for XML that would serve approximately the same
  purpose that CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) serves
  for HTML and that DSSSL serves for SGML to
  determine the visualdisplay characteristics of
  documents on a computer display and/or on paper.

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7.2.2 Extensible Stylesheet Language - Formatting
Objects (XSL FO)

• The XSL specification defines, like XSLT, a
  number of XML elements and attributes that allow
  an application to control such formatting
  characteristics as page structure, font and size
  of text, list element numbering, and image
  placement as well as structural characteristics
  such as tables, blocks of text (e.g.,
  paragraphs), and footnotes.
• The elements defined by XSL FO are placed into a
  specific namespace, often indicated by the
  namespace prefix "fo".

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7.3 The Relationships between XML Documents

• Technology intended to help define and strengthen
  the relationships between two or more XML
  documents.

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7.3.1 XML Inclusions (Xlnclude)

• Virtually all programmers are familiar with the
  ability to modularize program code.
• Modularization is a process in which an entity is
  broken into several parts that can then be
  reassembled into the desired whole.
• Documents can be, and frequently are, modularized
  in the same manner.
• For example, a book typically has multiple
  components, such as chapters, appendices, tables,
  and figures.
• Those components may be written and updated by
  different people, at different times, using
  different tools. They are all brought together to
  form the final book.

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7.3.1 XML Inclusions (Xlnclude)
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7.3.1 XML Inclusions (Xlnclude)

• XML Inclusions (XInclude), "introduces a generic
  mechanism for merging XML documents."

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