Exerscise 11: XML Introduction

1. Conduct research on the Internet to find out what tools can be used to parse an XML document and ensure that the document is well formed and valid.


The following were found from a web search to validate that an XML is well formed and valid.

1 W3Schools
http://www.w3schools.com/Dom/dom_validate.asp

2 Scholarly technology group

http://www.stg.brown.edu/service/xmlvalid/

3 HTML/XML Validator

http://validator.aborla.net/index.php5?lang=en

4 XML well-formed checker and validator
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~richard/xml-check.html

5. XMLPARSE at http://www.gnu.org/software/gnustep/resources/documentation/Developer/Tools/Reference/xmlparse.html



2. What are the benefits of adopting a schema standardized for a business sector?


The following can be considered benefits of adopting schema standards for a business sector

- Facilitate sharing of information between business;
- Ensure interoperability between corporate systems;
- Exchange documents between different people and organizations in much structured manner
- Improve efficiency in production, core distribution and operation;
- Establish a sophisticated level of computerization in product traceability and recycle fields;


3. SMIL is an application of XML. What is the purpose of this technology? Where does it apply?


SMIL (Synchronised Multimedia Integration Language) is a collection of reusable modules for multimedia editing and playing. To create a presentation with SMIL, an XML document is created with components of a head and body. The head defines the layout, and the body defines the content and where, when and for how long to display it. This allows you to overlay animation, logos, and other images over an image or video, without affecting the original video. This technique can be used for example, on a music television show where the name of a song and the artist will be displayed at the start of a song, trivial facts will be displayed throughout the song, and the television station logo is displayed in the corner throughout the broadcast.
It is specificlly useful for applying to the use of multimedia presentationon the web. As of Dec 1, 2008, The SYMM Working Group at W3C.org has published the SMIL 3.0 Recommendation. (http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-SMIL3-20081201/)