Introduction to Applied XML Technologies in Business Textbook

Introduction to Applied XML Technologies in Business




		ISBN:	0-13-033854-0


		If you have a question about the textbook, or found an error in the text, please feel free to send a message to textbooks@artige.com and either Mr. Hilken or Dr. Wagner will reply to your inquiry. Please include the ISBN # of the book in question.

Available on this page:

Table of Contents

Errata

Downloads




Table of Contents		PREFACE.


		Part I. XML BASICS.

		XML in Action Case: New life for an old application.

		Chapter 1. Defining XML.

		An overview of electronic documents and meta-languages. Explains what the XML language provides to an enterprise. Also lists some of the available XML vocabularies.


		Part II. XML AND DATA CONTENT.

		XML in Action Case: Warehouse pick-list application.

		Chapter 2. XML Documents.

		Introduction to the XML language and XML documents. Covers the semantics associated with the XML language, relying on the World Wide Web Consortium XML recommendation.


		Part III. XML AND DATA DEFINITIONS.

		XML in Action Case: Creating E-Chemical's InventoryML XML vocabulary.

		Chapter 3. Vocabularies and the DTD.

		Starts with a discussion of vocabularies in general, then focuses on XML-related needs. Describes writing XML documents against specific DTDs, concentrating on simple constructs.

		Chapter 4. Advanced XML Data Definition Topics.

		Continues from chapter three, considers the complicated language constructs. Also presents an overview of vocabulary editors, then follows with a discussion of data typing and logic behind alternative languages such XML schema.


		Part IV. XML AND DATA OUTPUT.

		XML in Action Case: XML and E-Chemical's Enterprise Resource Planning System.

		Chapter 5. Output Processing Concepts Using XML Technologies.

		Begins with an overview of output processing, and different methodologies available to generate output electronically, including style sheets. Covers push, pull and list processing, dual agent and iterative agent processing.

		Chapter 6. Basic Output Formatting.

		Focuses on implementing CSS style sheets to generate output from XML documents.

		Chapter 7. Complex Output Formatting.

		Focuses on implementing XSLT style sheets to generate output from XML documents.

		Chapter 8. Advanced XSL Topics.

		Focuses on programmatic capabilities of XSLT language, as well as using XSLT and CSS simultaneously. An overview of XSL-FO is presented, and a comparison of structure against layout is made.


		Part V. XML APPLICATIONS.

		XML in Action Case: Choosing XML technologies and programming methodologies.

		Chapter 9. XML Application Basics.

		Begins with an exploration into intellectual property (IP), and the danger of relying upon "standards" that in turn rely upon other's IP. This is followed by the categorization of XML application architectures by data utilization, implementation model, and programming model. Three methods for retrieving content from an XML document are presented; manually, DOM, SAX. An example based upon a SAP IDOC is presented. The chapter closes with an overview of XML-RPC, SOAP-RPC and web services.


		Part VI. XML AND BUSINESS STRATEGY.

		XML in Action Case: Switch from EDI to XML?

		Chapter 10. XML for Competitive Advantage.

		Plan for assimilating such a new technology as XML. How one can generate XML application ideas for competitive advantage. Closes with a discussion of XML project management and future directions.


		Appendices.

		One appendix is proved too list the first 256 Unicode characters, their glyphs, and commonly associated entity references. The second appendix lists the CSS properties, to assist in completing text exercises.

		Glossary of Terms.

		170 terms specific to the XML technologies and the processing of XML documents are provided.

Errata	Current as of	December 22, 2004

	Page xiii	Replace lItilization with Utilization.
	Pp 84-86	Replace the three pages concerning XML declaration tags with the ones located in this PDF file or in this zipped PDF file.
		You will need to use an Acrobat Reader to view the modifications, available from Adobe here.
	Page 261	For Figure 5.9, replace XLST in the top left scroll with XSLT.
	Page 269	Insert XML between the words in language in the tip box.
	Page 274	Replace content-on with content, on.
	Page 425	For Debugging Exercise #4, replace &gt: with >.
	Page 522	The title "Parsers" should be demoted as a sub-title under "Path Forward for XML Applications".
	Page 523	The title "Web Services" should be demoted as a sub-title under "Path Forward for XML Applications".




Prerequisites / Downloads		The textbook provides the reader with a number of tutorial examples to assist in learning the idiosyncrasies of the XML language. The examples in this textbook are Microsoft Windows-based, assuming that they will be run on a workstation loaded with Windows NT, 2000, XP or on Windows 98 / Me. Below are listed the programs and software packages that the tutorials were developed against. Links are also provided to obtain information on installing those programs on your workstation.

		Note that time has passed since the textbook was written, where newer versions of the programs have appeared since the book was published. Please do not uninstall any software on your workstation and load older versions for the sake of the tutorials. The authors would be surprised that the tutorials would not run because of newer software versions.

		Browser	Internet Explorer, version 5.5 minimum (service pack 2 recommended)
		XML Parser	Microsoft XML Parser (MSXML3.dll), alternatively available here*.
		XML Editor	Microsoft XML Notepad, alternatively available here*.
		XPath Tool	XPath Visualizer by Dimitre Novatchev, alternatively available here*

* Webmasters:

These files have been archived here for versioning purposes, so that the textbook exercises can be performed as program versions march on. Please do not link directly to these three files from this domain. Instead link to them from their original sources.


		For some of the tutorials, custom programs were written to enhance the teaching capabilities of the tutorials. These programs can be downloaded below.

	OILORD02gen	A program to create OILORD02 IDOC XML documents, filled with data entered by the user, or randomly generated. More information on the IDOC XML vocabularies can be obtained from the SAP IDOC web site.
	xslt.vbs	A command-line script that allows one to generate an output file (XML, HTML, or text) from an XML source file and an XSLT style sheet. This script will invoke the MSXML3.dll library.
	SaxTesterVB.dll	A compiled ActiveX object that invokes the MSXML3.dll library, and implements the IVBSAXContentHandler interface, so that one can use SAXreader object from a web page.

Additional Resources	We have written an article concerning the usage of recursion in XSLT style sheets and how the XSLT result tree is created, plus the limitations that the XSLT language brings to accessing multiple sources and the resulting output tree. Please click here to access this useful style sheet article.




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Last updated:
5-March-2005 01:34z