XML 3 - Processing with DOM & SAX

This lecture begins with a close look at the popular document object model (DOM) as an application programming interface (API) for XML. Clent side processing with DOM includes a quick look at AJAX with and without the XMLHttpRequest object. The simple API for XML (SAX) takes a rather different approach to XML programming and provides an interesting comparison.

Lecture slides PowerPoint 860k

Examples from the lecture

Example 1 - Server-side PHP DOM - simple temperature list
- using the PHP5 standard compliant DOM
  - listTempsSimple.php
  - source code for listTempsSimple.php
  - temperatures.xml
- using DOM->load() with a flattened XML file
  - listFlatTemps.php
  - source code for listFlatTemps.php
  - flatTemps.xml - compare view source with temperatures.xml
  - listNotFlatTemps.php see what happens if the xml is not flattened for DOM->load()
  - source code for listNotFlatTemps.php
  - listNotFlatTempsNOBLANKS.php using LIBXML_NOBLANKS with DOM->load()
  - source code for listNotFlatTempsNOBLANKS.php
Example 2 - Server-side PHP DOM - paged temperature list with validating parser
- listTempsPaging.php
- source code for listTempsPaging.php
- tempsDTD.xml
- temps.dtd
Example 3 - Client-side JavaScript DOM- listing temperatures
- listTempsStrict.html the strict XHTML version
- listTemps.html the XML data island version - IE5+ only
Example 4 - Client-side JavaScript DOM - searching temperatures
- searchTempsStrict.html the strict XHTML version
- searchTemps.html the XML data island version - IE5+ only
Example 5 - Three variations on AJAX (view source to see the code)
- ajax.html AJAX loading XML into the page
  - ajaxTestAsynchronous.html just to confirm that this is asynchonous
- XMLHttpRequest.html using XMLHttpRequest AJAX to load XML into the page
  - XMLHttpRequestTestAsynchronous.html just to confirm that this is asynchonous
- ajaxDirectory.html using XMLHttpRequest to create an AJAX application without using XML
- Don't forget the example we played with when looking at JavaScript validation
Example 6 - SAX Menu using PHP
- saxMenu.php SAX menu
- source code for saxMenu.php
- menu.xml
- saxMenuFlat.php SAX menu using a flat XML file - view source to see the difference
- menuFlat.xml

Tutorial exercises

Remember that these exercises are an important part of the course, are relvant to your coursework and and may be relevant to the exam!!!

Some DOM and SAX resources

W3C DOM
- Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification
Gecko DOM Reference
SAX homepage
XML for <SCRIPT>
DOM, SAX and JDOM tutorial from Anders Møller & Michael I. Schwartzbach
Microsoft's extensive DOM documentation
Jesse James Garrett's AJAX article
SAJAX - Simple AJAX toolkit
XMLHttpRequest - from Wikipedia

XML 3 - Processing with DOM and SAX

Examples from the lecture

Tutorial exercises

Some DOM and SAX resources