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Chapter 16: A Brief XML Primer
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Again, this is the same data — just a different perspective.
But hang on a sec — why limit ourselves to just XML? While going over every type of transformation
you could do is well outside the scope of this book, it is important to understand that XSL transforms are
possible to and from a wide variety of formats. You can transform to other XML layouts, but you can
also transform to other formats entirely such as CSV files or even a Word document.
Note that I’ve presented XSLT here just as a concept. SQL Server does very little
with XSLT — focusing on the data rather than how the data is presented. The key
thing to take from this is the understanding that what is fundamentally the same
data may be formatted in XML many different ways, and that XSLT provides a means
for transforming XML into alternative layouts within XML as well as to non-XML
formats.
Summary
Well, there you have an extreme whirlwind tour of XML, DTDs, schemas, and a bit of XPath to boot. It is
impossible in one chapter to address a topic as broad as XML and its related technologies; however, I hope
this chapter has at least provided insight into what XML is all about and what is involved in making use of
it at the most basic level.
XML is one of the most important technologies to hit the industry in the last 10 or more years. It provides
a flexible, very transportable way of describing data. This ease of description will help to facilitate not
only the website development that you hear so much about, but also the kind of behind-the-scenes information
exchange that businesses have longed for for a very long time indeed.