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called character data) and the XML markup. We briefly touched
on what markup was in
Chapter 1
. Markup is information about content that helps us use the content. In XML, the
actual markup serves several purposes:
•
It provides a fairly simple and standardized syntax that XML parsers can use for
resolving the information it describes.
•
The markup provides a rich method of describing the hierarchical structure of the
content by breaking the content information (character data)
into chunks called
elements
that in turn are further described by
attributes
. The hierarchical structure of
the entire document is described through the usage of markup.
An XML document can be roughly broken down into three
generic sections of markup
collections:
•
Prolog
•
Document Type Definition (optional)
•
Root Element
Each of these sections is further broken down into more detailed structures. Figure 3.2
shows all of these generic markup sections with their subsections. We go into some
detail about all of these in this chapter.
Figure 3.2:
Putting XML documents in perspective: The Panoramic Perspective.
