XML Its Role and Use

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XML Its Role and Use

• Ben Forta
• Senior Product Evangelist, Macromedia

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Agenda

• The Problem
• Introducing XML
• Working with XML
• ColdFusion MX and XML
• Web Services

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The Problem
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An Example

• Organization A works with a supplier
  (organization B)
• Organization A does not have access to
  organization B's IT systems

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The Problem

• All interaction between the two organizations is
  manual
• Order submission
• Status checking
• Payment
• Reporting

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The Need

• The two organizations need to share information,
  despite differing environments and incompatible
  applications

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Introducing XML
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What XML Is Not

• XML is not a way to format page layout (as is
  HTML)
• XML is not a presentation language

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What Is XML

• XML is less a language per se, and more a way
  to describe data
• XML data is described using vocabularies

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Understanding XML

• XML serves two primary purposes
• Provides a framework to separate data from
  presentation and layout
• Provides a syntax that allows applications to
  share data
• XML defines common information formats across
  nearly every major computing endeavor

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Example - The Challenge

• An organization relies on multiple suppliers,
  each of whom uses a different computer system and
  thus a different way to describe parts
• The challenge is to retrieve real time status
  information from multiple sources so as to be
  able to present it in a consistent format

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Example - The Solution

• An XML format (a vocabulary) is agreed upon
  ahead of time, by the suppliers
• Each supplier publishes data in the agreed upon
  format
• The client retrieves the standardized data as
  needed

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Example - Sample Data

• Sample XML vocabulary
  123 A24680DER_NUM Shipped
  20020101
  UPS ...

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Working With XML
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XML Terminology

• DTD data definition document describing the XML
  data (sometimes called a schema)
• DOM document object model, a hierarchical view
  of XML content
• Node an item in the DOM, nodes are made up of a
  type, a name, and a value
• Root top level element in a document
• Element the actual content

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Displaying XML Data

• XML is NOT a page layout language
• XML describes data
• XML data can be displayed in any client
  technology, including HTML, Flash, Java,
  JavaScript, ActiveX

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Working with XML

• Working with XML requires tools that can
  manipulate structured XML data
• Read values
• Walk trees
• Search for and extract specific elements
• Set values and build trees

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Applying Transformations

• XSL is a template language that is used to
  provide display rules for XML data
• XML is data, XSL is a set if display rules
• XSL is applied to XML generating a transformation
  (the actual output)

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ColdFusion MX and XML
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ColdFusion MX and XML

• ColdFusion provides build in support for
• Reading XML data
• Writing XML content
• Applying XSL transformation
• Performing XPath searches

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XML In ColdFusion

• Within ColdFusion, XML documents are accessed as
  objects
• An XML object in ColdFusion is a structure, and
  can be access as such
• Objects are created using
• XMLNew()
• XMLParse()

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Reading XML Data

• XMLParse() converts an xml document into an XML
  object
• VARIABLE"xmldata" a) root.order_status.statusTPUT

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Writing XML Content

• or XMLNew() creates XML objects that may
  be populated as needed
  QUERY"orders"
  ordnum
  status
  

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Applying XSL Transformations

• XSL transformation are applied using
  XMLTransform()
• XMLTransform(xmlfeed,
  xsldoc)

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Performing XPath Searches

• XPath is a search language used to find and
  extract values from an XML document
• XPath uses search patterns to specify search
  criteria

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Web Services
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Why Web Services?

• XML is data and facilitates data sharing
• Web Services are distributed applications built
  on top of XML (and SOAP)
• Where XML formats data for sharing, SOAP
  facilitates that sharing

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Access to Web Services

• provides access to any Web
  Servicess.net/sd/2001/BabelFishService.wsdl"METHOD"Babel
  Fish"TRANSLATIONMODE"en_fr"SOURCEDATA"Hello,
  my name is Ben"RETURNVARIABLE"name_french"OUTPUTname_french

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Publishing Web Services

• Any ColdFusion components can be made accessible
  as a Web service by simply defining the ACCESS in
  the component methodACCESS"remote"
• ColdFusion Components and methods may be secured
  using
• User roles
• Access levels

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Summary

• XML is data sharing
• ColdFusion MX makes XML usable
• Web Services facilitate distributed XML data
  sharing

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QA