XML

Introduction
XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. It is a text-based
markup language derived from Standard Generalized Markup
Language (SGML).
XML tags identify the data and are used to store and organize
the data, rather than specifying how to display it like HTML
tags, which are used to display the data. XML is not going to
replace HTML in the near future, but it introduces new
possibilities by adopting many successful features of HTML.
 There are three important characteristics of XML that make it
useful in a variety of systems and solutions −
 XML is extensible − XML allows you to create your own self-
descriptive tags, or language, that suits your application.
 XML carries the data, does not present it − XML allows you to
store the data irrespective of how it will be presented.
 XML is a public standard − XML was developed by an organization
called the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and is available as an
open standard.
XML Usage
XML can work behind the scene to simplify the
creation of HTML documents for large web sites.
XML can be used to exchange the information
between organizations and systems.
XML can be used to store and arrange the data, which
can customize your data handling needs.
XML can easily be merged with style sheets to create
almost any desired output.
Virtually, any type of data can be expressed as an XML
document.
What is Markup?
XML is a markup language that defines set of rules for
encoding documents in a format that is both human-
readable and machine-readable.
So what exactly is a markup language? 
Markup is information added to a document that
enhances its meaning in certain ways, in that it
identifies the parts and how they relate to each other.
More specifically, a markup language is a set of
symbols that can be placed in the text of a document
to demarcate and label the parts of that document.
Example
<message>
<text>Hello, world!</text>
</message>
Is XML a Programming Language?
A programming language consists of grammar rules
and its own vocabulary which is used to create
computer programs. These programs instruct the
computer to perform specific tasks.
XML does not qualify to be a programming language
as it does not perform any computation or algorithms.
It is usually stored in a simple text file and is processed
by special software that is capable of interpreting
XML.
XML - Syntax
<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<contact-info>
<name>Tanmay Patil</name>
<company>TutorialsPoint</company>
<phone>(011) 123-4567</phone>
</contact-info>

There are two kinds of information in the above example −

1. Markup, like <contact-info>
2. The text, or the character data, Tutorials Point and (040)
123-4567.
XML Declaration
The XML document can optionally have an XML
declaration. It is written as follows −
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
Where version is the XML version and encoding specifies
the character encoding used in the document.
Syntax Rules for XML Declaration
1. The XML declaration is case sensitive and must begin
with "<?xml>" where "xml" is written in lower-case.
2. If document contains XML declaration, then it strictly
needs to be the first statement of the XML document.
3. The XML declaration strictly needs be the first statement
in the XML document.
4. An HTTP protocol can override the value
of encoding that you put in the XML declaration.
Tags and Elements
An XML file is structured by several XML-elements,
also called XML-nodes or XML-tags.
The names of XML-elements are enclosed in
triangular brackets < > as shown below −
<element>
Syntax Rules for Tags and Elements
Element Syntax − Each XML-element needs
to be closed either with start or with end
elements as shown below −
<element>....</element>or in simple-cases, just
this way −
<element/>
Syntax Rules for Tags and Elements
Nesting of Elements −
 An XML-element can contain multiple XML-
elements as its children, but the children elements
must not overlap. i.e., an end tag of an element must
have the same name as that of the most recent
unmatched start tag.
Example 1
<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<contact-info>
<company>TutorialsPoint </contact-info>
</company>

Example 2
<?xml version = "1.0"?>
 <contact-info>
<company>TutorialsPoint</company>
</contact-info>
Syntax Rules for Tags and Elements
Root Element − An XML document can have only
one root element. For example, following is not a
correct XML document, because both
the x and yelements occur at the top level without
a root element −
<x>...</x>
<y>...</y>
The Following example shows a correctly formed
XML document −
<root>
<x>...</x>
<y>...</y>
</root>
Syntax Rules for Tags and Elements
Case Sensitivity − The names of XML-
elements are case-sensitive. That means the
name of the start and the end elements need
to be exactly in the same case.
For example, <contact-info> is different
from <Contact-Info>
XML Attributes
An attribute specifies a single property for
the element, using a name/value pair.
An XML-element can have one or more
attributes.
For example −
<a href =
"http://www.tutorialspoint.com/">Tutorialspoint!
</a>
Here href is the attribute name
and http://www.tutorialspoint.com/ is
attribute value.
Syntax Rules for XML Attributes
• Attribute names in XML (unlike HTML) are
case sensitive.
• That is, HREFand href are considered two
different XML attributes.
• Same attribute cannot have two values in a
syntax.
• Attribute names are defined without quotation
marks, whereas attribute values must always
appear in quotation marks.
XML

References
References usually allow you to add or include
additional text or markup in an XML document.
References always begin with the symbol "&" which is
a reserved character and end with the symbol ";".
 XML has two types of references −
1. Entity References − An entity reference contains a
name between the start and the end delimiters. For
example &amp; where amp is name. The name refers
to a predefined string of text and/or markup.
2. Character References − These contain references,
such as &#65;, contains a hash mark (“#”) followed
by a number. The number always refers to the
Unicode code of a character. In this case, 65 refers to
alphabet "A".
XML Text
The names of XML-elements and XML-attributes are
case-sensitive, which means the name of start and end
elements need to be written in the same case.
To avoid character encoding problems, all XML files
should be saved as Unicode UTF-8 or UTF-16 files.
XML Text
Some characters are reserved by the XML syntax itself.
Hence, they cannot be used directly.
To use them, some replacement-entities are used,
which are listed below −
Not Allowed Replacement Entity Character
Character Description

< &lt; less than

> &gt; greater than

& &amp; ampersand

' &apos; apostrophe

" &quot; quotation mark

XML - Documents
An XML document is a basic unit of XML information
composed of elements and other markup in an orderly
package.
An XML document can contains wide variety of data.
For example, database of numbers, numbers
representing molecular structure or a mathematical
equation.
XML Document Example
Document Prolog Section
Document Prolog comes at the top of the document,
before the root element. This section contains −
1. XML declaration
2. Document type declaration
Document Elements Section
Document Elements 
These are the building blocks of XML. These divide
the document into a hierarchy of sections, each
serving a specific purpose.
You can separate a document into multiple sections so
that they can be rendered differently, or used by a
search engine.
 The elements can be containers, with a combination
of text and other elements.
XML - Declaration
XML declaration contains details that prepare an
XML processor to parse the XML document.
It is optional, but when used, it must appear in the first
line of the XML document.

<?xml
version = "version_number"
encoding = "encoding_declaration"
standalone = "standalone_status"
?>
XML - Declaration
Parameter Parameter_value Parameter_description
Version 1.0 Specifies the version of the XML standard
used.
Encoding UTF-8, UTF-16, ISO- It defines the character encoding used in
10646-UCS-2, ISO- the document. UTF-8 is the default
10646-UCS-4, ISO- encoding used.
8859-1 to ISO-8859-9,
ISO-2022-JP, Shift_JIS,
EUC-JP
Standalone yes or no It informs the parser whether the
document relies on the information from
an external source, such as external
document type definition (DTD), for its
content. The default value is set to no.
Setting it to yes tells the processor there
are no external declarations required for
parsing the document.
XML - Tags
XML tags form the foundation of XML.
 They define the scope of an element in XML.
They can also be used to insert comments, declare
settings required for parsing the environment, and to
insert special instructions.
XML - Tags
Start Tag
The beginning of every non-empty XML element is marked by a
start-tag. Following is an example of start-tag −
<address> End Tag
Every element that has a start tag should end with an end-tag.
Following is an example of end-tag −
</address> Note, that the end tags include a solidus ("/") before the
name of an element.
Empty Tag
The text that appears between start-tag and end-tag is called
content. An element which has no content is termed as empty.
An empty element can be represented in two ways as follows −
A start-tag immediately followed by an end-tag as shown below −
<hr></hr>A complete empty-element tag is as shown below −
<hr />Empty-element tags may be used for any element which has
no content.
XML - Elements
XML elements can be defined as building blocks of an
XML. Elements can behave as containers to hold text,
elements, attributes, media objects or all of these.
Each XML document contains one or more elements,
the scope of which are either delimited by start and
end tags, or for empty elements, by an empty-
element tag.
Syntax
Following is the syntax to write an XML element −
<element-name attribute1 attribute2> ....content </element-
name>
XML - Attributes
Attributes are part of XML elements. An element can
have multiple unique attributes. Attribute gives more
information about XML elements. To be more precise,
they define properties of elements. An XML attribute is
always a name-value pair.
Syntax
An XML attribute has the following syntax −
<element-name attribute1 attribute2 >
....content..
< /element-name>
where attribute1 and attribute2 has the following form −
name = "value"
value has to be in double (" ") or single (' ') quotes.
Here, attribute1 andattribute2 are unique attribute
labels.
XML - Attributes
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE garden [
 <!ELEMENT garden (plants)*>
 <!ELEMENT plants (#PCDATA)>
 <!ATTLIST plants category CDATA #REQUIRED>
]>

<garden>
 <plants category = "flowers" />
 <plants category = "shrubs">
 </plants>
</garden>
XML - Comments
 XML comments are similar to HTML comments. The
comments are added as notes or lines for understanding
the purpose of an XML code.
Comments can be used to include related links,
information, and terms. They are visible only in the
source code; not in the XML code. Comments may appear
anywhere in XML code.
Syntax
XML comment has the following syntax −
<!-------Your comment----->
A comment starts with <!-- and ends with -->. You can
add textual notes as comments between the characters.
You must not nest one comment inside the other.
XML Comments Rules
Following rules should be followed for XML
comments −
Comments cannot appear before XML declaration.
Comments may appear anywhere in a document.
Comments must not appear within attribute values.
Comments cannot be nested inside the other comments.
XML - Character Entities
There are few special characters or symbols which are
not available to be typed directly from the keyboard.
Character Entities can also be used to display those
symbols/special characters.

Types of Character Entities

There are three types of character entities −
1. Predefined Character Entities
2. Numbered Character Entities
3. Named Character Entities
XML - Character Entities
Predefined Character Entities
They are introduced to avoid the ambiguity while using some
symbols.
For example, an ambiguity is observed when less than ( < ) or greater
than ( > ) symbol is used with the angle tag (<>).
Character entities are basically used to delimit tags in XML.
Following is a list of pre-defined character entities from XML
specification.
These can be used to express characters without ambiguity.

 Ampersand − &amp;
 Single quote − &apos;
 Greater than − &gt;
 Less than − &lt;
 Double quote − &quot;
XML - Character Entities
Numeric Character Entities
The numeric reference is used to refer to a
character entity.
Numeric reference can either be in decimal or
hexadecimal format.
As there are thousands of numeric references
available, these are a bit hard to remember.
Numeric reference refers to the character by its
number in the Unicode character set.
General syntax for decimal numeric reference is −
&# decimal number ;
General syntax for hexadecimal numeric reference is −
&#x Hexadecimal number ;
Numeric Character Entities
Entity name Character Decimal Hexadecimal
reference reference

quot " &#34; &#x22;

amp & &#38; &#x26;

apos ' &#39; &#x27;

lt < &#60; &#x3C;

gt > &#62; &#x3E;

Named Character Entity
As it is hard to remember the numeric characters, the
most preferred type of character entity is the named
character entity.
Here, each entity is identified with a name.
For example −
'Aacute' represents capital character with acute
accent.

'ugrave' represents the small with grave accent.

CDATA Sections
The term CDATA means, Character Data.
CDATA is defined as blocks of text that are not
parsed by the parser, but are otherwise
recognized as markup.
The predefined entities such as &lt;, &gt;, and &amp;
require typing and are generally difficult to read in the
markup.
In such cases, CDATA section can be used.
By using CDATA section, you are commanding the
parser that the particular section of the document
contains no markup and should be treated as
regular text.
CDATA Sections
Syntax
Following is the syntax for CDATA section −

<![CDATA[
 characters with markup
]]>
The above syntax is composed of three sections −
CDATA Start section − CDATA begins with the nine-character
delimiter <![CDATA[

CDATA End section − CDATA section ends with ]]> delimiter.

CData section − Characters between these two enclosures are

interpreted as characters, and not as markup. This section may
contain markup characters (<, >, and &), but they are ignored by the
XML processor.
CDATA Sections
<script>
 <![CDATA[
 <message> Welcome to TutorialsPoint </message>
 ]] >
</script >
CDATA Rules
The given rules are required to be followed for XML
CDATA −
CDATA cannot contain the string "]]>" anywhere in the
XML document.
Nesting is not allowed in CDATA section.
 XML - Processing
Processing instructions (PIs) allow documents to contain
instructions for applications.
PIs are not part of the character data of the document, but
MUST be passed through to the application.

Syntax
Following is the syntax of PI −
<?target instructions?>
Where
target − Identifies the application to which the instruction is
directed.
instruction − A character that describes the information for the
application to process.
A PI starts with a special tag <? and ends with ?>. Processing of the
contents ends immediately after the string ?> is encountered.
XML - Encoding
Encoding is the process of converting unicode characters into
their equivalent binary representation.
When the XML processor reads an XML document, it encodes the
document depending on the type of encoding.
Hence, we need to specify the type of encoding in the XML
declaration.
Encoding Types
There are mainly two types of encoding −
 UTF-8
 UTF-16
UTF stands for UCS Transformation Format, and UCS itself
means Universal Character Set.
The number 8 or 16 refers to the number of bits used to represent
a character.
They are either 8(one byte) or 16(two bytes). For the documents
without encoding information, UTF-8 is set by default.
XML - Encoding
Syntax
Encoding type is included in the prolog section of the
XML document.
 The syntax for UTF-8 encoding is as follows −
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"
standalone = "no" ?>
The syntax for UTF-16 encoding is as follows −
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-16"
standalone = "no" ?>
XML - Validation
Validation is a process by which an XML document is
validated.
An XML document is said to be valid if its contents
match with the elements, attributes and associated
document type declaration(DTD), and if the
document complies with the constraints expressed in
it.
Validation is dealt in two ways by the XML parser.
They are −
Well-formed XML document
Valid XML document
Well-formed XML Document
Well-formed XML Document
An XML document is said to be well-formed if it adheres to
the following rules −
 Non DTD XML files must use the predefined character entities
for amp(&), apos(single quote), gt(>), lt(<), quot(double quote).
 It must follow the ordering of the tag. i.e., the inner tag
must be closed before closing the outer tag.
 Each of its opening tags must have a closing tag or it must
be a self ending tag.(<title>....</title> or <title/>).
 It must have only one attribute in a start tag, which needs to be
quoted.
 amp(&), apos(single quote), gt(>), lt(<), quot(double quote)
entities other than these must be declared.
Example
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8" standalone = "yes" ?>
<!DOCTYPE address
[
 <!ELEMENT address (name,company,phone)>
 <!ELEMENT name (#PCDATA)>
 <!ELEMENT company (#PCDATA)>
 <!ELEMENT phone (#PCDATA)>
]>

<address>
 <name>Tanmay Patil</name>
 <company>TutorialsPoint</company>
 <phone>(011) 123-4567</phone>
</address>
Valid XML Document
If an XML document is well-formed and has an
associated Document Type Declaration (DTD), then it
is said to be a valid XML document. 
XML - DTDs
The XML Document Type Declaration, commonly known
as DTD, is a way to describe XML language precisely.
DTDs check vocabulary and validity of the structure of
XML documents against grammatical rules of appropriate
XML language.
An XML DTD can be either specified inside the document,
or it can be kept in a separate document and then liked
separately.
Syntax
Basic syntax of a DTD is as follows −
<!DOCTYPE element DTD identifier
[
 declaration1
 declaration2
 ........
XML - DTDs
In the above syntax,
The DTD starts with <!DOCTYPE delimiter.
An element tells the parser to parse the document
from the specified root element.
DTD identifier is an identifier for the document type
definition, which may be the path to a file on the
system or URL to a file on the internet. If the DTD is
pointing to external path, it is called External Subset.
The square brackets [ ] enclose an optional list of
entity declarations called Internal Subset.
Internal DTD
A DTD is referred to as an internal DTD if elements are
declared within the XML files.
To refer it as internal DTD, standalone attribute in XML
declaration must be set to yes. This means, the declaration works
independent of an external source.

Syntax
Following is the syntax of internal DTD −

<!DOCTYPE root-element [element-declarations]>

where root-element is the name of root element and element-
declarations is where you declare the elements.
Internal DTD
Following is a simple example of internal DTD −

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8" standalone = "yes" ?>

<!DOCTYPE address [
 <!ELEMENT address (name,company,phone)>
 <!ELEMENT name (#PCDATA)>
 <!ELEMENT company (#PCDATA)>
 <!ELEMENT phone (#PCDATA)>
]>

<address>
 <name>Tanmay Patil</name>
 <company>TutorialsPoint</company>
 <phone>(011) 123-4567</phone>
</address>
External DTD
In external DTD elements are declared outside the XML
file.
They are accessed by specifying the system attributes
which may be either the legal .dtd file or a valid URL.
To refer it as external DTD, standalone attribute in the XML
declaration must be set as no.
This means, declaration includes information from the
external source.
Syntax
Following is the syntax for external DTD −
<!DOCTYPE root-element SYSTEM "file-name">
where file-name is the file with .dtd extension.
External DTD
Example
The following example shows external DTD usage −

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8" standalone = "no" ?>

<!DOCTYPE address SYSTEM "address.dtd">
<address>
 <name>Tanmay Patil</name>
 <company>TutorialsPoint</company>
 <phone>(011) 123-4567</phone>
</address>

The content of the DTD file address.dtd is as shown −

<!ELEMENT address (name,company,phone)>

<!ELEMENT name (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT company (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT phone (#PCDATA)>
XML - Schemas
XML Schema is commonly known as XML Schema
Definition (XSD).
It is used to describe and validate the structure
and the content of XML data.
XML schema defines the elements, attributes and
data types.
Schema element supports Namespaces.
It is similar to a database schema that describes the
data in a database.
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
 <xs:element name = "contact">
 <xs:complexType>
 <xs:sequence>
 <xs:element name = "name" type = "xs:string" />
 <xs:element name = "company" type = "xs:string" />
 <xs:element name = "phone" type = "xs:int" />
 </xs:sequence>
 </xs:complexType>
 </xs:element>
</xs:schema>
XML - Tree Structure
An XML document is always descriptive.
The tree structure is often referred to as XML
Tree and plays an important role to describe any
XML document easily.
The tree structure contains root (parent) elements,
child elements and so on.
By using tree structure, you can get to know all
succeeding branches and sub-branches starting from the
root.
The parsing starts at the root, then moves down the first
branch to an element, take the first branch from there,
and so on to the leaf nodes.
Example
<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<Company>
 <Employee>
 <FirstName>Tanmay</FirstName>
 <LastName>Patil</LastName>
 <ContactNo>1234567890</ContactNo>
 <Email>[email protected]</Email>
 <Address>
 <City>Bangalore</City>
 <State>Karnataka</State>
 <Zip>560212</Zip>
 </Address>
 </Employee>
</Company>
XML - DOM
The Document Object Model (DOM) is the foundation of XML.
XML documents have a hierarchy of informational units
called nodes; DOM is a way of describing those nodes and
the relationships between them.
A DOM document is a collection of nodes or pieces of
information organized in a hierarchy.
This hierarchy allows a developer to navigate through the tree
looking for specific information. Because it is based on a
hierarchy of information, the DOM is said to be tree based.
The XML DOM, on the other hand, also provides an API
that allows a developer to add, edit, move, or remove
nodes in the tree at any point in order to create an
application.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
 <body>
 <h1>TutorialsPoint DOM example </h1>
 <div>
 <b>Name:</b> <span id = "name"></span><br>
 <b>Company:</b> <span id = "company"></span><br>
 <b>Phone:</b> <span id = "phone"></span>
 </div>
 <script>
 if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
 {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
 xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
 }
 else
 {// code for IE6, IE5
 xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");

 xmlhttp.open("GET","/xml/address.xml",false);
 xmlhttp.send();
 xmlDoc = xmlhttp.responseXML;

 document.getElementById("name").innerHTML=
 xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("name")
[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
 document.getElementById("company").innerHTML=
 xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("company")
[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
 document.getElementById("phone").innerHTML=
 xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("phone")
[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
 </script>
 </body>
</html>
<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<contact-info>
 <name>Tanmay Patil</name>
 <company>TutorialsPoint</company>
 <phone>(011) 123-4567</phone>
</contact-info>
XML - Namespaces
A Namespace is a set of unique names. Namespace is a mechanisms
by which element and attribute name can be assigned to a group. The
Namespace is identified by URI(Uniform Resource Identifiers).

Namespace Declaration
A Namespace is declared using reserved attributes. Such an attribute
name must either be xmlns or begin with xmlns: shown as below −

<element xmlns:name = "URL">

Syntax
The Namespace starts with the keyword xmlns.

The word name is the Namespace prefix.

The URL is the Namespace identifier.

XML - Namespaces
Example
Namespace affects only a limited area in the document. An element
containing the declaration and all of its descendants are in the scope of the
Namespace. Following is a simple example of XML Namespace −

<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>

<cont:contact xmlns:cont = "www.tutorialspoint.com/profile">
 <cont:name>Tanmay Patil</cont:name>
 <cont:company>TutorialsPoint</cont:company>
 <cont:phone>(011) 123-4567</cont:phone>
</cont:contact>
Here, the Namespace prefix is cont, and the Namespace identifier (URI) as
www.tutorialspoint.com/profile. This means, the element names and
attribute names with the cont prefix (including the contact element), all
belong to the www.tutorialspoint.com/profile namespace.
XML - Databases
XML Database is used to store huge amount of
information in the XML format. As the use of XML is
increasing in every field, it is required to have a
secured place to store the XML documents.
The data stored in the database can be queried using
XQuery, serialized, and exported into a desired format.

XML Database Types

There are two major types of XML databases −

XML- enabled
Native XML (NXD)
XML - Databases
XML - Enabled Database
XML enabled database is nothing but the extension provided
for the conversion of XML document. This is a relational
database, where data is stored in tables consisting of rows and
columns. The tables contain set of records, which in turn
consist of fields.

Native XML Database

Native XML database is based on the container rather than
table format. It can store large amount of XML document and
data. Native XML database is queried by the XPath-expressions.

Native XML database has an advantage over the XML-enabled

database. It is highly capable to store, query and maintain the
XML document than XML-enabled database.
Example
<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<contact-info>
 <contact1>
 <name>Tanmay Patil</name>
 <company>TutorialsPoint</company>
 <phone>(011) 123-4567</phone>
 </contact1>

 <contact2>
 <name>Manisha Patil</name>
 <company>TutorialsPoint</company>
 <phone>(011) 789-4567</phone>
 </contact2>
</contact-info>
XML - Viewers
An XML document can be viewed using a simple text
editor or any browser. Most of the major browsers
supports XML.
 XML files can be opened in the browser by just
double-clicking the XML document (if it is a local file)
or by typing the URL path in the address bar (if the file
is located on the server), in the same way as we open
other files in the browser.
XML files are saved with a ".xml" extension.