Web Computing

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XML

designed to separate syntax from semantics with use of tags

if data is "data-centric", meaning intended for auto processing, better use a database

if data is "document-centric", meaning document is aimed at humans, XML is better

for large datasets, XML is slower due to processing

XML is an ordered and labelled tree:

character data: actual data

element: tags with set of attributes

things to know:

processing instruction: <?xml version = "1.0"?> is metadata about the document

comments: <!-- bla bla -->

empty node: <empyNode/> which is same as <emptyNode></emptyNode>

only one root node

&amp = &, &lt = <, etc with &gt &apos &quot

<![CDATA[ Everything in here is skipped by the parser ]]>

<tag xmlns:namespace = "AnyUniqueString"> creates a namespace for that tag

<?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="location"?> for linking a css to xml

CSS

selectors and declarations

looks like this: TAGNAME {property: value}

things to remember:

TAG1, TAG2 {declaration} means TAG1 and TAG2 will be affected by the same declaration

CSS declarations are sometimes inherited by descendants

* selects all, with more complex examples like A*D {color: red} => any D tag that is a child or later descendant of A will be affected by color red

TAG1 TAG2 {declaration} => TAG2 that is in a TAG1 but not necessarily direct child

TAG1 > TAG2 {dec} => affects TAG2 only if it's directly a child of TAG1

TAG1[att] or TAG1[att = "value"] selects tag only if tag is present or is equal to value

TAG1:pseudo examples like hover will change when hovered

DTD

<!ELEMENT name (content)> e.g. <!ELEMENT studentList (student)> <!ELEMENT student (#PCDATA)>

content can be "ANY" "EMPTY" or "#PCDATA" which stands for Parsed character data as opposed to CDATA which is (unparsed) character data

can specify how many children with *+? <!ELEMENT DVDS (dvd*)> can also use | for "or"

goes after the processing instruction in XML <!DOCTYPE name [ <!ELEMENT ...>]>

can link it instead with <!DOCTYPE SYSTEM "URI"> for private DTD or <DOCTYPE name PUBLIC "FPI" "URI"> where FPI is Formal public identifier (-/+ for standard or not standard, name of responsible for DTD, version, language) all separated by //

attributes in DTDs <!ATTLIST elementName attName type default, etc.>

many types, for default value can have #REQUIRED, #IMPLIED, #FIXED VALUE

SCHEMAS

XML Schema is an XML markup language

made because DTD is poop

DTD has no regexp, no constraints on CDATA, no support for namespaces, hard to write maintain and read large DTDs, etc.

a XML Schema is a XML doc marked up using the XML Schema markup language

the root is <xsd:schema xmlns:xsd = "URL">

schemas are made up of declarations of elements, types and attributes

<xsd:element name="foo" type="bar"/> => types can be simple types like positiveInteger, string, integer, boolean

occurrence constraints are like this <xsd:element name="foo" type ="bar" maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="1"/>

sequences like this: <xsd:sequence><xsd:element .../><xsd:choice><xsd:element 1/><xsd:element 2/></xsd:choice></xsd:sequence> much like <select> tag in HTML

xsd:complexType name="foo"> <xsd:sequence> ... </xsd:sequence></xsd:complexType>

attributes: <xsd:attribute name="foo" type="simpleType"/> can also have use="required, optional or prohibited", fixed or default

DOM Document object model is an application programming interfact (API) for well formed XML docs

getDocumentElement returns root object

getChildNodes return list of child object of node object

parse checks document is well-formed (throws error if fails)

getElementsByTagName returns a NodeList of nodes having the tag

createXXXX creates nodes etc.

Node.item returns node from the list

getNodeValue returns the content of the node (string if text node)

replaceChild replaces a child node with the new supplied

appendChild links a node as a child to an element

XSLT limitations to CSS (can't restructure a doc, can't remove content, can't compute data)

Extensible stylesheet language transformation = XSLT

XSLT uses XML syntax, XPath for pattern matching, generation, suppression, duplication, moving, sorting of content.

to write:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http..."> as root

XSLT consists of a set of templates

HTTP Hypertext transfer protocol

Stateless

8 different types of requests

GET

HEAD

POST

PUT

DELETE

TRACE

CONNECT

OPTIONS

Client side scripting:

+ lower stress on server since processing is done on client side

+ can avoid needing too many request by running script on client side for updates

- cross platform compatibility

- open source code leaves it open to anyone to see it

- careful when receiving scripts from server to execute automatically

- careful when receiving data from client side as script might have been changed

A compromise is AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)