|
|
Extensible Markup Language (XML) technologies have gained widespread acceptance in the computing industry in large part because the XML structure is particularly suitable for sending content over the Internet. This merit makes it likely that XML will play an even greater role in future computer innovations. Access developers who want to position themselves for new computer initiatives are wise to learn about XML technologies and using Access with these technologies.
XML is a syntax for representing any source, including data in Access database objects. XML documents have a simple format for representing data that is based on text, custom tags, and attributes. Related technologies, such as XML schemas for specifying structure in XML documents and XSLT (XML Stylesheet Language Transformations) for formatting and transforming XML documents, further enhance the power that XML can bring to your solutions.
This chapter introduces you to XML technologies, particularly XML technologies that work well with Access, including XML document syntax, XML schemas, and XSLT. You'll learn about the structure of XML documents and the broad range of sources that you can represent as XML. For example, you can expose Jet database tables, SQL Server views, XML schemas, and XSLT as XML documents with XML syntax. In addition, the chapter demonstrates how to program Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) from Access. MSXML offers a COM-based model for processing XML documents.
The first section offers an overview of selected XML technologies to facilitate your understanding of Access 2003 built-in XML features. You'll learn enough about XML tags and elements to read an XML document created by the Access ExportXML method. In addition, you'll gain sufficient mastery of XSD schemas to construct an Access table based on an XML document. The Access ImportXML method performs this function. A discussion of XSLT highlights the capability of this technology for representing data from an XML document in a table on a Web page.
The chapter's second and third sections feature manual and programmatic techniques for exporting, importing, and showing the contents of Access database objects via XML. The second section features manual techniques. You'll learn menu items and dialog box design elements for creating and processing XML documents. You'll also learn how to transport data over the Internet from Access databases via XML. The third section illustrates how to automate selected manual techniques. In addition, you'll learn how to process XML documents in ways not possible through the Access menus and dialog boxes. This is accomplished by showing you how to extend the built-in Access XML functionality with a basic understanding of XML technologies.
|
|