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Acronym |
Full Name |
Purpose |
Description |
Reference |
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DOM |
Document Object Model |
Standard interface for XML document tree traversal and access. |
DOM is a language-neutral API for accessing and changing the document tree of an XML document. It can be seen as a successor to ‘Dynamic HTML’ that allows scripts access to the document, but now extended to XML as well, and made language and vendor neutral. |
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SAX |
Simple API for XML |
Standard interface for event-based XML parsing |
Sax is a ‘streaming’ API for XML: this means that it is designed to allow access to the XML document as it is being read, rather than after the document has been parsed and a tree formed. |
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XLink |
XML Linking Language |
To define links between resources. |
XLink defines relations between resources used in a document. |
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XML |
Extensible mark-up language |
Meta language for defining mark-up languages |
XML is a meta-language: a language for defining other languages (principally data formats and similar mark-up). It is fundamentally a simplified version of SGML, based on implementation experience with the complexities of SGML. |
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XML Schema |
XML Schema |
Replacement for DTDs |
Schemas (or schemata) are intended as a replacement for DTDs, in XML format, making them easier to parse. They offer furthermore a rich set of data types, plus the ability to define new data types. |
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XPath |
XML Path language |
A language for addressing parts of an XML document |
XPath uses a compact, non-XML syntax to facilitate use of XPath within URIs and XML attribute values. XPath operates on the abstract, logical structure of an XML document, rather than its surface syntax. |
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XPointer |
XML Pointer Language |
To locate portions of XML documents, define in terms of XML structure |
XPointer extends URI’s by defining syntax for the fragment identifier, which is what comes after a ‘#’ in a URI. That which comes before the ‘#’ locates a full document, file or resource on the Web. The XPointer after the ‘#’ locates a portion of that resource, assuming that resource is an XML document. The location of the portion with the XML document is defined by XPointer in terms of XML syntax. |
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XQuery |
XML Query Language |
Flexible query facilities to extract data from real and virtual documents on the Web |
The goal of the XML Query Working Group is to produce a data model for XML documents, a set of query operators on that data model, and a query language based on these query operators. |
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XSL |
Extensible Stylesheet Language |
Define external presentations and transformations of XML documents |
XSL is a language that describes presentation. It includes a transformation language and a styling language. XSL is expressed itself in XML. |
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HTML |
Hypertext Mark-up Language |
Widely usable document structuring language |
Lingua franca for publishing on the World Wide Web. It is primarily an SGML-define language defining hypertext documents displayed on computer screens. |
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XHTML |
Extensible hypertext mark-up language |
Widely usable document structuring language |
Reformulation of HTML 4.0 as an XML application and defines the corresponding namespaces. The semantics of the elements and attributes are defined in the W3C Recommendation for HTML 4.01 (a corrected version of HTML 4). These semantics provide the foundation for future extensibility of XHTML. Compatibility with existing HTML browsers is possible by following a small set of guidelines. |
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SGML |
Standard Generalized Mark-up Language |
A meta-language in which one can define mark-up languages for documents |
SGML provides a variety of mark-up syntaxes that can be used for many applications. By changing the SGML Declaration one does not even need to use "angle brackets" although they are the norm, the so-called concrete reference syntax. SGML was originally designed to enable the sharing of machine-readable documents in large projects in government, legal and the aerospace industry, which have to remain readable for several decades—a very long time in information technology. It has also been used extensively in the printing and publishing industries, but its complexity has prevented its widespread application for small-scale general-purpose use. |