Ajax: Creating Web Pages with Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

Chapter 6. XML What can I say about XML that somebody before me hasn't already said? One little Google search is enough to learn that XML whitens whites and brightens brights. In short, name an ill that plagues today's world, and there is pr...

6.1. Elements The nodes shown in Listing 6-1 are called elements, and they closely resemble HTML tags. And like HTML tags, start tags begin with < and end tags begin with </. However, unlike HTML tags, all XML tags must either have a closing...

6.2. Attributes Attributes are a name-value pair that is contained in an element's start tag. The name portion of an attribute is separated from the value by an equals sign, and the value is enclosed in either single or double quotes. Elements can...

6.3. Handling Verboten Characters Occasionally when dealing with XML documents, you will encounter certain characters that will cause a document to be not well formed. For example, imagine an element that contains a JavaScript function, such as th...

6.4. Comments From an XML point of view, Listing 6-7 is well formed; unfortunately, some web browsers would have an issue with it as part of a web page. A method is needed to hide the JavaScript from XML, and the CDATA section tags from both the b...

6.5. Expectations When the Rolling Stones sang "You Can't Always Get What You Want," they were telling only half of the story. The other half is, "You Don't Always Want What You Get." Yeah, it doesn't roll off of the tongue the...

6.6. XML Declaration Before proceeding any further, I want to explain a little about the stuff between the <? and the ?>. It is called the XML declaration, which is an example of a META data tag that appears at the beginning of an XML docume...

6.7. Processing Instructions In addition to the XML declaration META tag, there is something called a processing instruction that also uses the <? and ?>. At first glance, processing instructions appear to be the same as the XML declaration,...

6.8. XML Data Islands For readers who are unfamiliar with the term XML Data Islands, they refer to the real estate that is usually purchased with the profits from one's first book. You know, the kind of real estate that isn't there when the tide i...

6.9. Summary This chapter covered some of the basics of XML, including the differences between elements and attributes. It also delved into what makes an XML document well formed and not well formed. In addition, I covered how to make script eleme...