Hi folks,
Excellent reading.
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc3470.txt
I particularly enjoyed the discussion of XML validation using
ISO SGML DTD, W3C XML Schema, and OASIS RELAX-NG in section 4.7.
Cheers,
- Ira McDonald
High North Inc
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[excerpts from RFC 3470]
Abstract
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a framework for structuring
data. While it evolved from Standard Generalized Markup Language
(SGML) -- a markup language primarily focused on structuring
documents -- XML has evolved to be a widely-used mechanism for
representing structured data.
There are a wide variety of Internet protocols being developed; many
have need for a representation for structured data relevant to their
application. There has been much interest in the use of XML as a
representation method. This document describes basic XML concepts,
analyzes various alternatives in the use of XML, and provides
guidelines for the use of XML within IETF standards-track protocols.
Table of Contents
Conventions Used In This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1. Introduction and Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1 Intended Audience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 XML Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 XML Users, Support Groups, and Additional
Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. XML Selection Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. XML Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. XML Use Considerations and Recommendations . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1 XML Syntax and Well-Formedness . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2 XML Information Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.3 Syntactic Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.4 XML Declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.5 XML Processing Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.6 XML Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.7 Validity and Extensibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.8 Semantics as Well as Syntax. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.9 Namespaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.9.1 Namespaces and Attributes. . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.10 Element and Attribute Design Considerations. . . . . . 14
4.11 Binary Data and Text with Control Characters . . . . . 16
4.12 Incremental Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.13 Entity Declarations and Entity References . . . . . . 16
4.14 External References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.15 URI Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.16 White Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.17 Interaction with the IANA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5. Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.1 Character Sets and Encodings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.2 Language Declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.3 Other Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . 20
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
9. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
10. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
11. Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
12. Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 23 2003 - 16:23:49 EST