Richard G Baldwin (512) 223-4758, NRG Room 4238, Baldwin@DickBaldwin.com, http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/

ITSE1356 Introduction to XML

This document is provided for classroom sections and Distance Learning sections taught by Professor Baldwin.

About XMLSPY

Spring 2008

Revised 08/23/07

The official web page for this course is http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/Spring08/Itse1356WebPage/ITSE1356.htm.  

The CD that comes with the textbook contains a 120-day evaluation copy of a product named XMLSPY.  You can feel free to install and use that product on your computer at home in accordance with the license agreement.  Just remember that it will expire in 120 days following installation, which is barely enough time to include the full semester.

In addition, as of 11/15/04, you can download the Home Edition of XMLSPY free of charge at http://www.altova.com/download.html.  Altova has this to say about the Home Edition:

"Altova XMLSpy® 2005 Home Edition is a FREE entry level XML development tool for getting started with XML technologies. It is ideally suited for hobbyists, entry-level developers, and students."

XMLSPY provides both an XML editor and an XML validator.

Because the copy of XMLSPY that comes with the textbook is only good for 120 days, and because ACC is not licensed for this software product, it is not my intention that XMLSPY will be installed on the computers in the ACC labs.  Therefore, we will need a workaround for those instances where the textbook refers to the use of XMLSPY.

Text editor

There are several text editors installed on the computers in the ACC lab at NRG that are entirely adequate for creating XML files.  This includes JCreator, Notepad, PFE32 and probably some others as well.  Those of you who are working at home can use any plain text editor, of which dozens are freely available for downloading on the web (or you can use XMLSPY).

An XML validator

That leaves us in need of an XML validator for those situations where you need to validate an XML document against a DTD (as in the textbook Tutorial 3).

Validate using Internet Explorer

As of 11/15/04, Microsoft Internet Explorer can be upgraded to give it XML validation capability by installing the free tools that are available at the following URL:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D23C1D2C-1571-4D61-BDA8-ADF9F6849DF9&displaylang=en

The computers in the ACC labs at NRG were upgraded during the Fall semester of 2004 to add XML validation capability to IE.  Using this capability, you can validate an XML file by:

(This upgrade also provides some added XSL capability that you may find useful.)

Online XML validation

Another possibility is to use the online XML validator at http://validator.w3.org/.  This seems to work fine when the XML document (and the DTD) are contained in a single file and don't reference any external files such as System DTD files.  Just click on the above link and follow the instructions on the screen to upload and validate your file.

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File: ITSE1356AboutXMLSPY.htm