Further Reading

XML sprang to life in the late 1990s as a metalanguage scientifically designed to definitively push aside SGML. If you want to learn more about this ancestor of XML, still in use in some legacy e-commerce applications, have a look at the tutorial available at http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-html40-970708/intro/sgmltut.html.

In this chapter and in this book, you won’t find detailed references to the syntax and structure of XML technologies. If you need to know all about DTD attributes and XSD components, you’ll need to look elsewhere. One resource that I’ve found extremely valuable is Essential XML Quick Reference, written by Aaron Skonnard and Martin Gudgin (Addison Wesley, 2001). This book is an annotated review of all the markup code around XML, including XSD, XSL, XPath, and SOAP—not coincidentally, the same XML standards fully supported by the .NET Framework. Another resource I would recommend is XML Pocket Consultant, written by William R. Stanek (Microsoft Press, 2002). For online resources, check out in particular http://www.xml.com.

An excellent article that describes the big picture behind XSD, Web services, and SOAP can be found on the MSDN Magazine Web site, at http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/11/WebServ/WebServ0111.asp. A detailed tutorial on XSD can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-0. I especially recommend this tutorial if you need a complete step-by-step guide to the intricacies and wonders of the XSD as defined by the W3C.

As for regular expressions, I don’t know of any book or online resource that specifically untangles this topic. On the other hand, regular expressions are covered in almost every book aimed at the .NET Framework. In particular, take a look at Chapter 12 of Francesco Balena’s Programming Visual Basic .NET Core Reference (Microsoft Press, 2002).