The Seattle SAGE Group
XML - An Introduction For System Administrators

What's so great about XML?

For starters, THE DATA AND FORMATTING ARE SEPARATED.
What, you missed that? Well, here's a little (incomplete) example in HTML and XML.

<HTML 1.0>
<HEAD><TITLE>Example</TITLE> </HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Seattle SAGE Group</H1>
<BR><I>Located in:</I>
<H2>Where else, Seattle</H2>
</BODY></HTML>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE SSG_EX SYSTEM " SSG_example.dtd">
<SSG_EX>
<group>Seattle SAGE Group</group>
<location>Where else,Seattle</location>
</SSG_EX>

The <group> and <location> tags are defined elsewhere in a Document Type Definition (SSG_example.dtd). The DTD's contain the description of all the tags that appear in a XML document. DTD's are very important. They define the structure of an XML document.

How does a parser parse the <group> tag, given we just made it up? Well, we didn't. it was defined in the DTD as an element, along with the attributes for the tag.

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Last modified: Wednesday, February 9, 2000

Page Content feedback&questions to Jeff Welty (weltyj@wdni.com)