Chapter 2. XML Processing

IN THIS CHAPTER

2.1 Basics

2.2 XML Structure Before and After Parsing

2.3 Schema Processing

The XML Recommendation does not prescribe that all XML processing programs must be structured in a specific way. However, having in mind a particular processing model does help in understanding XML. This chapter describes a common processing model that seems to be in harmony with the various XML-related Recommendations that are promulgated by the W3C.

The model of XML processing that is arising from those XML-related Recommendations is necessarily rather fine-grained, so that the interactions between various aspects of XML can be described. In practice, different XML systems will clump into “black box” processors that do not show the internal seams and might even bypass some of the steps in the process. This is perfectly reasonable as long as the output behavior of the processor is what the Recommendations require.