XML Courses

Browse our selection of brief courses on XML standards

XML

What it is, how it's structured, and the syntax you'll actually use in 10 slides A text-based markup language for storing and transporting structured data in a self-describing, hierarchical (tree) form. “Extensible”: there are no predefined tags — you define your own elements and vocabulary to fit your data. A W3C Recommendation since 1998; a simplified subset of SGML. Platform- and language-neutral, Unicode-based, and human-readable.Describes data, not presentation — content is kept separate from how it is displayed or formatted.

XPath

Navigating and querying XML — the engine behind XSLT 2.0 and XQuery in 10 slides. A compact expression language for navigating an XML tree, selecting nodes, and computing values. Not written in XML — a terse, path-like syntax embedded inside a host language. The shared foundation of XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0. A W3C Recommendation — XPath 1.0 (1999), XPath 2.0 (2007); 2.0 is a near-superset of 1.0.Every expression is evaluated against a context — a current item, position and size.

XSLT

Transforming XML into anything — driven by template rules and XPath 2.0 in 10 slides. A declarative language for transforming an XML document into other XML, HTML, plain text — or XSL-FO for PDF. An XSLT stylesheet is itself a well-formed XML document. It works by matching template rules against nodes selected with XPath 2.0. A W3C Recommendation — XSLT 1.0 (1999), XSLT 2.0 (2007). Rule-based and side-effect-free: you describe the output for each pattern; the processor handles the order.

Deep dive: XSLT Templates — A Beginner’s Guide — 20 slides on named templates (xsl:call-template), parameters, and matching by XPath (xsl:apply-templates).

XSL-FO

What it is, how it works, and the formatting objects you'll actually use in 10 slides. An XML vocabulary for describing the precise visual layout of paginated documents — page geometry, typography and styling. It is the formatting half of W3C XSL. The full picture:XSL = XSLT (transform) + XPath (navigate) + XSL-FO (format). A W3C Recommendation — XSL 1.0 (2001), XSL 1.1 (2006).Built to produce high-quality, print-ready output: PDF, PostScript, AFP, RTF.It declares WHAT each page should look like; an FO processor decides HOW to render it.