deutsche Version
 

 

 

 

 

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Acrobat Reader
A tool by Adobe to view and print PDF files. Acrobat Reader is freely distributable. 

Activated Intelligence
A vendor of XML/XSL tools in Java, e.g. the XSL processor AXSL that is now probably a part of the new EZ/X suite of core XML tools for Java. Homepage

ActiveX
Phrase appearing everywhere COM technology is used, e.g. ActiveXControl, ActiveXServer, etc.

ActiveXControl
A COM object that can be loaded from a server via inter- or intranet and run on any NT-client. In contrast to Java applets, ActiveXControls do not run in a sandbox, e.g. the security restrictions are not too strict. Thus downloading ActiveXControls is only recommended using intranets. Examples for ActiveXControls are XMLDOM and XMLHTTP. Homepage

Adept
SGML editor by ArborText. Homepage

Adobe
Vendor of (among others) SGML/XML tools, e.g. the Acrobat Reader, FrameMaker, FrameMaker+SGML, and SVG stuff. Homepage

Ælfred
XML parser in Java supporting the SAX interface, originally from Microstar Software Ltd. Microstar was acquired by Open Text Corporation in September 1999. Homepage

alphaWorks
Internet information forum by IBM, providing internet technologies, esp. XML tools, e.g. the XML editor Xeena and the XML parser XML4J. These tools have previously been available as free downloads. Recently, IBM also made them available for commercial licensing. Homepage

Apache
Can refer to either the Apache Digital Corporation, a company building web servers, or the Apache Software Foundation, hosting Apache open-source software projects, e.g. the Apache HTTP Server or Tomcat. The Apache Software Foundation incorporates, among others, the Apache XML Project (xml.apache.org) consisting of Xerces, Xalan, Cocoon, FOP, Xang, and SOAP. The xml.apache.org project has the support of, among others, IBM and Sun.

API
Application Programming Interface, the Java-API e.g. consists of the packages 'java.AWT' for building GUIs, 'java.io' to handle IO, etc.

applet
see Java applet.

ArborText
Vendor of SGML/XML tools, e.g. the Adept editor and the documentation system Epic. Homepage.

architectural form
Parts of an architectural DTD that are meant to be used as element- and attribute-models within SGML documents. Documents that contain instances of these element- and attribute-models must refer to the resp. architectural DTD via an 'Architecture Use Declaration PI'.

ASP
Active Server Pages, Microsoft's technology to enables HTML pages to be dynamic and interactive by embedding scripts, i.e. either VBScript or JScript, Microsoft's alternative of JavaScript. Since the scripts in ASP pages (suffix .asp) are processed by the server, any browser can work with ASP pages regardless of its support for the scripting language used therein.

authentification
Possibility to sign a message that enables the receiver to make sure where the message came from and that it has not been changed after having been signed, see e.g. XML-Signature.

AxKit
Apache XML Delivery Toolkit, a suite of XML processing tools in Perl, for delivering XML to clients using XSLT on the server side. AxKit uses gingerall's Sablotron as an XSLT engine. Homepage

AXSL
Activated XSL, XSL processor by Activated Intelligence. Homepage

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B2B
Business-to-Business, a way of describing the processing of business transactions over the Internet. B2B is one of the main application areas for XML.

Balise
Toolset by AIS for developing document conversion systems. Balise HTML Package is a stylesheet developer for Conversion from SGML/XML to HTML. Homepage.

Base64
An encoding for binary data as described as a means of encoding email bodies in the IETF's MIME RFC. Base64 consists only of 64 encoding characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9, +, /) that are a subset of US-ASCII.

BLOB
Binary large object, something that (e.g. within the context of XML) is treated and esp. gets stored as a whole without further structuring efforts.

Bluestone
Software vendor in the Java, XML area, e.g. providing XwingML. Homepage.

BML
Bean Markup Language, a means of describing a JavaBeans component application in XML

Bolero
Business Objects Language EnviROnment, application factory for electronic business by SAG, released Oktober 98. It contains a proprietary object oriented language that compiles to Java bytecode. All development data is kept in a repository. In addition to Java, Bolero supports features as long transactions, patterns and persistent classes (JRB) incl. OQL retrieval. Product Site.

Breeze
Software vendor and tool in the Java / XML area. Breeze Factor LLC. provides the Breeze XML Studio that binds XML to JavaBeans. Breeze XML Studio is contained in Software AG's Tamino XML Platform. The Breeze Factor LLC Homepage,

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CALS
Standard for modelling tables in SGML/XML, e.g. contained in DocBook.

  • CALS DTD, an SGML Open Technical Memorandum on Robin Covers SGML/XML Page.

Candidate Recommendation
A W3C document type which follows the 'last call' Working Draft and precedes the Proposed Recommendation. It is an explicit call to those outside of the related Working Groups or the W3C itself for implementation and technical feedback.

Catalog
File that contains additional information for SGML documents. Catalogs are esp. read by SGML parsers. Catalog information includes external entities or the DTD.

CDATA
Character Data, part of an SGML or XML document, that is not parsed and may therefore contain almost any character sequence. A 'CDATA-Section' begins with "<![CDATA[" and ends with "]]>".

CDF = Channel Definition Format
Channel Definition Format, an XML application. CDF on Robin Cover's SGML/XML page.

CGI
Common Gateway Interface, a standard for external gateway programs to interface with information servers such as HTTP servers. The current version is CGI/1.1. Proprietary standards extending CGI are e.g. Netscape 's NSAPI and Microsoft's ISAPI, the API of the Internet Information Servers (IIS).

  • CGI Documentation on the NCSA Server (NCSA = National Center for Supercomputing Applications) at the University of Illinois at Urbana.

CML
Chemical Markup Language, an XML schema, to handle information concerning chemical substances, Homepage.

Cocoon
An XML publishing framework written in Java on top of DOM (rsp. SAX) and XSL.

  • Cocoon at the Apache XML Project.
  • Cocoon2 , a redesign of Cocoon using SAX as its API instead of DOM.

COM
Component Object Model, the MS-paradigm to connect components. MS has implemented the base technology for COM on the NT platform. Software AG has ported these on MVS and UNIX. A COM-object defines its interfaces. Components from different machines can be combined using DCOM .

Component
A piece of software, program, dynamic link library, or shared library covering a single or multiple tasks, normally covering a whole functional aspect of a system.

Cookie
A small amount of state data stored permanently or temporarily by the client. Cookies are transmitted to and from the server and allow a web site to remember things about the client, e.g. whether the user has previously visited the site. Cookies can be written and read by CGI and JavaScript scripts.

CORBA
Common Object Request Broker Architecture: CORBA is an architecture and specification for creating, distributing, and managing distributed program objects in a network. It allows programs at different locations and developed by different vendors to communicate in a network through an "interface broker." CORBA was developed under the auspices of the OMG (Object Management Group) and has been sanctioned by both ISO and X/Open as the standard architecture for distributed objects (also known as components).

CSS
Cascading Style Sheets, a W3C Recommendation. Stylesheets when attached to documents describe how the document is displayed or printed, e.g. a CSS sheet is attached to an HTML document, to influence its layout when accessed via a browser. CSS supports cascading, i.e. a single document may use two or more stylesheets that are than applied according to specified priorities (=cascade). See also CSS2 and CSS3.

CSS2
Stylesheet language that extends CSS. Different from CSS1, CSS2 is applicable to XML.

CSS3
Recent development regarding CSS. The W3C's style working group tries publishing this standard in a modularized way, i.e. there are multiple Working Drafts pertaining to CSS3.

CVS
concurrent versioning system, software for accessing source code repositories, e.g. used in the Apache XML project.

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DataChannel
Vendor of an XML server. Homepage.

Data Map
The Data Map is Tamino's knowledge base. It contains the schemas that hold the rules according to which XML objects are stored and composed. These schemas are entered by the administrator.

DBCS = Double Byte Character Set
One of a number of character sets defined for representing Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text, e.g., JIS X 0208-1990. These character sets are often encoded in such a way as to allow mixing double byte character encodings with single byte character encodings.

DCD
Document Content Description, a means of describing XML schemata. DCDs are an extension of XML-Data. In contrast to DTDs, DCDs may not only specify element- and attribute-structure but their data types as well, see W3C Submission.

DCOM = Distributed COM
Distributed COM, impementing systems by combining components that are located on different machines.

DDML
Document Definition Markup Language, a means of describing XML schemata, former name XSchema.

DHTML
Dynamic HTML, a standard extending HTML, consisting of HTML 4.0, CSS, DOM and scripting languages e.g. ECMAScript (ECMA = The European Computer Manufacturers Association).

DocBook
SGML and XML DTDs and DSSSL/XSL stylesheets originally from the Davenport Group, i.e. Norman Walsh, now owned by OASIS, for modelling and converting manuals.

docproc
A Java class-library to process and layout XML documents using XSL.

DocZilla
Web browser by CITEC that is supposed to be able to render XML, SGML, and HTML documents. DocZilla is based on Netscape's Mozilla open-source project. It uses CSS and additional features from CSS2 to render XML and SGML directly and also supports the DOM accessed through JavaScript. DocZilla Alpha 3 runs on WinNT/95/98 and Linux.

DOM
Document Object Model, a platform independent interface for accessing HTML and XML documents usable from within programming and scripting languages. The DOM presents documents in an object oriented fashion. A DOM interface is e.g. provided by Microsoft's XMLDOM ActiveXControl. DOM exists in three levels. DOM Level 1 is a W3C Recommendation and is currently supported by lots of implementations. DOM Level 2 extends DOM Level 1 w.r.t., among others, access to the DTD and namespaces. DOM Level 2 is yet a W3C Proposed Recommendation. DOM Level 2 is specified in a modularized document structure, i.e. Core Specification, HTML Specification, Views Specification, Style Specification, Events Specification, and Traversal-Range Specification. Core is the entry point to read the specification. The DOM group has recently published a first suggestion for DOM Level 3.

DSC
DSSSL Syntax Checker, an online syntax checker, normaliser and implementation framework for DSSSL, based on embedding a full R4RS Scheme interpreter in James Clark's SP parser, current version is 2.0. It is available for download.

DSSSL
Document Style Semantics and Specification Language, A stylesheet language for SGML and XML documents. A subset of DSSSL (DSSSL-O) is implemented by James Clark's Jade. A freeware syntax checker for DSSSL is Henry Thompson's DSC.

  • James Clark's DSSSL Page,
  • OpenJade, the site for the DSSSL user group,
  • A list of DSSSL Tutorials by Frank Boumphrey,
  • The DSSSL Documentation Project, a collective effort to write a DSSSL documentation, hosting among others the 'DSSSL Handbook' and the 'DSSSL Cookbook',
  • The DSSSList Homepage.

DTD
Document Type Definition, Schema specification method for SGML and XML documents. DTDs are either contained in the document or belong to its external subset and are then referenced from within the document's document type declaration per URI. Known DTDs are e.g. DocBook, CML, IBTWSH, and HTML. dtd2html generates HTML documentation for SGML DTDs. For XML, DTDs will be replaced by the new XML Schema specification method.

dtd2html
A Perl program that generates an HTML document that documents an SGML DTD and allows hypertext navigation of the DTD. dtd2html is part of the perlSGML package.

DynaTag
A tool to transform existing word processing documents into SGML/XML by Enigma Inc.

DynaText
SGML/XML viewer by Enigma Inc.

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EarthWeb
Webseite for career development and technical information on, among others, Java, XML, and networking (successor of Gamelan).

  • The EarthWeb Site.

e-business
electronic business, see e-commerce.

ebXML
electronic business XML, A project jointly initiated by UN/CEFACT (= The United Nations body for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business) and OASIS to standardize XML business specifications. ebXML intends to develop a technical framework that will enable XML to be utilized in a consistent manner for the exchange of all electronic business data.

e-commerce
electronic commerce, also e-business, a term for all kinds of business that are established electronically especially over the Internet. This includes both electronic sale (internet shops) and B2B transactions, i.e. business between two companies. For e-commerce standards and/or standardization bodies see ebXML, EDI, or RosettaNet.

EDI
Electronic Data Interchange, Contact between companies exchanging orders via intra- or internet. A standard for that is EDIFACT (Electronic Commerce). This can be more secure using internet-tunneling, i.e. two partners use connections that can not be accessed by anybody else.

EDIFACT
United Nations rules For EDI For Administration, Commerce And Transport, ISO standard 9735.

EJB
Enterprise Java Beans, a set of JavaBeans, currently being developed by Sun to support development of distributed applications.

EntireX
Software AG product supporting DCOM and wrapping, among others this enables integrating legacy applications (e.g. on the mainframe) and GUI-frontends. The EntireX Internet site.

entity
A part of an SGML or XML document or DTD. Entities that contain schema information and are referred to from a DTD are called parameter entities. Entities may contain data that is given within the document, i.e. at the very point the entity is declared. An other form of entity is the external entity that contains a URI that points towards the data. If the URI is a PUBLICID it points towards a catalog entry that resolves the PUBLICID to a URL. Thus referring external entities supports indirection. Catalogs are, however, not supported in XML.

An entity is a reference to data that is used for content reuse and document size minimization. Developers can use entities to simplify the management of information that appears repeatedly. XML Authority refers to entities as reusables.

EPIC
XML editor and publisher by ArborText

ERP
ERP (enterprise resource planning) is an industry term for the broad set of activities supported by multi-module application software that help a manufacturer or other business manage the important parts of its business, including product planning, parts purchasing, maintaining inventories, interacting with suppliers, providing customer service, and tracking orders.

eXcelon
eXcelon Corp., former Object Design and now Progress Software Corporation, vendor of XML/B2B tools, among others, eXcelon Stylus and Object Store (an OO database).

  • The Progress Software Corporation Homepage,
  • The Announcement 'Object Design Renames and Repositions as XML Player eXcelon' from February 02, 2000

eXcelon Stylus
A visual editor for XSLT stylesheets owned by eXcelon corp., former Object Design.

expat
XML parser toolkit in C originally written by James Clark. James' last release was 1.2 after which the expat maintenance was handed over to a team of developers led by Clark Cooper, the maintainer of the Perl expat binding, XML::Parser.

external entity
Part of an XML document that is not contained in the document, but is referred to via a URI. External entities may be parsed or unparsed entities. The entity is unparsed, if the entity declaration mentions a notation. The parser thus presumes the entity to contain data that can only be dealt with using the application mentioned in the respective notation declaration.

extensibility
Vendor of XML tools, e.g. XML Authority, a graphical design tool for e.g. XML Schemas, and XML Instance a schema-sensitive XML editor. These tools are both part of Software AG's XENON architecture. extensibility was acquired by TIBCO in 2000.

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FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions

FO
formatting objects

FOP
A Java application by James Tauber that translates XML documents to PDF making use of XSL's formatting objects. At 9th November FOP has been donated to the Apache XML project.

formatting objects
XSL FO, a paradigm in XSL that is similar to DSSSL's idea of flow objects. Rendering an XML document using an XSL stylesheet is done via transforming the input document into another document represented internally as a tree. The structure of this tree corresponds to the structure the document is intended to be represented on screen or in print. The nodes of the tree are formatting objects (e.g. paragraphs, blocks, etc.). This tree is then formatted into the output by rendering the elements of the XML document (the tree nodes, i.e. the formatting objects) as described using the formatting properties specified for the formatting objects within the stylesheet. The first step, transforming the input XML document into the XSL FO instance, is done by an XSLT processor. See XSLT for more information esp. on XSLT implementations. The second step, rendering the XSL FO instance, is done by a renderer. For engines supporting XSL formatting objects see XSL FO.

FOSI
Format Output Specification Language, a vendor independent stylesheet language e.g. used for designing the layout of SGML and XML documents in Arbortext's Adept editor.

Fourthought
A company providing custom software solutions for businesses, developing a suite of XML software components in Python.

  • The Fourthought Site incl. free downloads.

FTP
File Transmission Protocol, a standard Internet protocol to exchange files on top of TCP/IP. FTP is used, among others, to downloading programs and other files to your computer from other servers.

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GCA
Graphic Communications Association, a nonprofit organization hosting XML events, e.g. XML Europe 2000. Homepage.

Gecko
The next generation of Netscape's browsers (i.e. Netscape Navigator), built as a part of the open source Mozilla project. Gecko supports XML, DOM 1.0, and CSS. Products and Downloads.

generic identifier
An element's name within an HTML, SGML or XML document that is given in the tag between < and >.

GI
generic identifier

gingerall
Ginger Alliance Ltd., a vendor of XML tools, i.e. the XML distribution architecture 'Charlie' and the XSLT processor Sablotron. Homepage.

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HTML
Hypertext Markup Language, document type consisting of text and tags, that rule e.g. layout and hyperlinking. An HTML file has extension ‘.htm’ or ‘.html’, the content type is ‘html’. Java applets can be included using the <APPLET> tag. The current version is HTML 4.0. Extensions of HTML are CSS (a stylesheet language that may govern the layout without touching the content), DHTML (include dynamic behaviour), and XML (semantical instead of presentational tags), and XHTML (XML-compatible HTML).

HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol, an application protocol, i.e. a set of rules for exchanging files on the World Wide Web that runs on top of TCP/IP. The latest version is HTTP 1.1 as published by an IETF's RFC. The W3C pursues HTTP within its architecture domain. Access to HTTP requests is, among others, enabled using the XMLHTTP ActiveXControl.

HTTPS = Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol
HTTPS is a web protocol that encrypts and decrypts user page requests as well as the pages that are returned by the web server."

HyBrick
A former SGML/XML browser by Fujitsu, incl. a DSSSL interface. HyBrick used James Clark's SP and Jade. It is no longer available.

hyperlink
On the Web or other hypertext systems, hyperlink is a synonym for both link and hypertext link. Possibly, the term originated because "link" was not felt to be specific enough. And it's shorter than "hypertext link."

hypermedia
Hypermedia, a term derived from hypertext, extends the notion of the hypertext link to include links among any set of multimedia objects, including sound, motion video, and virtual reality.

hypertext
Hypertext is the organization of information units into connected associations that a user can choose to make. An instance of such an association is called a link or hypertext link.

HyTime
Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language, linking-standard for SGML, partly predecessor of XLL, the linking standard for XML.

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I18N
Internationalization. The process of planning and developing products so that they can be changed to meet the requirements of specific local languages and cultures.

IBTWSH
Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Simple Hypertext DTD, an XML DTD being a subset of the HTML DTD. This DTD when combined with other DTDs using the namespaces paradign, enables structured comments to be included in documents, DTD, Version 5.0.

ICE
Information & Content Exchange, an XML protocol for exchanging and integrating business data.

IDL = Interface Definition Language
Language for defining interfaces enabling communication between modules implemented in different languages.

IE5
Internet Explorer, Microsoft browser, current version is 5.0.

IETF
Internet Engineering Task Force, the body that defines standard Internet operating protocols such as TCP/IP, URIs, etc. The IETF's main documents are the RFCs.

IIS
Internet Information Server, Web-server, part of the Windows NT Server, supports ISAPI.

Image map
An HTML feature using the <MAP> and <AREA> tags to define mouse-sensitive regions within an HTML page. 

InStranet
Company providing web content management systems. Homepage.

Internet
A a worldwide system of computer networks based on the TCP/IP set of protocols. Its most widely used parts are electronic mail (e-mail) and the World Wide Web (WWW).

Intershop
Vendor of electronic business solutions. Homepage.

Intranet
A private network that is contained within an enterprise using TCP/IP, HTTP, and other Internet protocols. Intranets may include connections through gateway computers to the Internet using firewall servers for security. 

IP
Internet Protocol, protocol in the TCP/IP internet layer for communication between nets and their hosts. An IP-address uniquely identifies each network and each of its hosts on the internet. Addresses consist of four bytes that can be represented by four integers (0 to 255) seperated by dots, e.g. "157.189.162.75". Dependent on the address' class and a subnet mask, a specific number of bits identify the net or subnet and the rest a PC's address within this net/subnet.

ISAPI
Internet Information Server API, API supported by the MS's Internet Information Server (IIS).

ISO = International Organization for Standardization
ISO was founded in 1946. It is an international federation of national standards organizations from over 100 countries. ISO is a word, not an abbreviation, derived from the Greek isos, "equal", found in terms such as "isometric" and "isonomy". It was created in an attempt to avoid creating even more abbreviations for the members' national languages (e.g. IOS in English or OIN in French for "Organisation internationale de normalisation").

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Jade
James DSSSL Engine, C++ implementation of the DSSSL stylesheet language by James Clark for Win32 and UNIX platforms, current version is 1.2. Jade supports the backends RTF, XML, Fot (=Flow Object Tree), TeX, MIF (a MacIntosh-format), and SGML.

JAR
Java Archive, file format, basically a ZIP format to contain Java classes and optionally a manifest file to describe the classes, e.g. whether they are JavaBeans. JAR files are created, viewed, and updated and single classes are extracted using the Java Archive Tool (call: jar). JAR files are especially useful when called from applets since the client has less stuff to download when the applet is run.

Java
Object oriented programming language, Java classes compile into Java-bytecode. This code can be executed on any platform that implements the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Executable Java-objects are either applets or applications. Java supports multithreading.

Java Applet
A component written in Java, that can be downloaded from a server via an intra- or internet and executed on a client. The applet runs in a sandbox, e.g. the security settings only allow the applet to access data located on the server the applet is downloaded from. Most browsers contain a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and are thus capable of running applets.

JavaBeans
Java component model. Beans, i.e. reusable Java components with a standardized interface, can be created using the Bean Development Kit (BDK).

JavaScript
Netscape's object oriented scripting language, usable from within HTML pages. Microsoft's version of JavaScript is JScript.

JAXP
A freeware Java package by Sun providing core XML capabilities including an XML parser with optional validation (Project X) and an in-memory object model tree that supports the W3C's DOM Level 1 recommendation.

  • The JAXP Product Page, you have to register as a JDC (= Java Development Connection) member to enter.

JDBC
Java Database Connectivity, standardized DB interface for Java. This technology allows to write an application once, and use it with any SQL database that has a JDBC-driver.

JDK
Java Developers Kit, toolset by Sun (e.g. the "javac" compiler) for Java development, containing lots of Java class libraries as e.g. Swing. The current version is JDK1.2.

JFC
Java Foundation Classes, an other name for Swing.

JScript
Microsoft's script language for HTML pages. It adheres to the ECMAScript standard and is Microsoft's equivalent to Netscape's JavaScript.

JVM
Java Virtual Machine, Java bytecode interpreter, exists on different platforms, e.g. Windows NT, AS400, ...

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Koala
XML project by Bull France, the most interesting part is KOML, a Java serialisation using XML, Koala Project Homepage.

KOML
Koala Object Markup Language, a method for serialisation and deserialisation of Java-objects in XML. Homepage.

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Lark
Nonvalidating XML parser by Tim Bray in Java. An Introduction to XML Processing with Lark and Larval.

LotusXSL
IBM's XSL processor in Java usable from the command line or from wrapper applets. 01/12/2000 : LotusXSL has been updated to be a wrapper for the latest version of Xalan. LotusXSL on IBM Alphaworks.

Lynx
A freeware text browser for the web. The Lynx Homepage.

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Markup
Markup refers to the sequence of characters or other symbols that you insert at certain places in a text or word processing file to indicate how the file should look when it is printed or displayed or to describe the document's logical structure. The markup indicators are often called "tags."

MathML
Mathematical Formula Markup Language, XML DTD for mathematical formular.

metalanguage
Metalanguage is a definition or description of language.

Mime
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, the MIME-type specifies a mail's type, e.g. text, application, audio, etc.

Mozilla
An open-source project starting from the source of the Netscape Navigator, Netscape's web-browser. Netscape is a major contributor to the Mozilla code. At the same time, Netscape uses the Mozilla code as the basis of its Netscape 6 product. Mozilla supports XML via a DOM API and CSS stylesheets. XSL support is planned.

MSL
Model Schema Language, an initiative by members of the W3C's XML Schema Working Group, to provide a formal model for the XML Schema language.

  • The message New MSL Draft by Jonathan Robie, published 15.09.2000 on a W3C mailing list.

MSXML
Validating XML parser and XSLT processor by Microsoft, written in Java that ships with IE5. For a conformant XSLT processor upgrade to MSXML3, a COM Object that replaces the former non-conformant Java processor.

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namespaces
W3C activity concerning XML to enable documents to use names specified in foreign DTDs. A namespace declaration within an XML document points to a namespace 'ns' via a URI. Thus the names contained in this namespace are available in the form 'ns:name' within a specific part of the document's tree.

NDATA
Data Content Notation, Part of an SGML or XML entity declaration. The NDATA keyword maps an entity to a notation. This tells the parser not to parse this entity but to hand it over to the program that is specified in the notation declaration.

Netscape Communicator
Netscape's suite of internet tools containing, among others, the Netscape Navigator, and email, calendar, and management features. Homepage.

Netscape Navigator
(Former name Mozilla) Netscape's web-browser, supporting Java-Applets with version 2.0., now part of the Netscape Communicator.

notation
SGML or XML declaration, that gives a name to a data format for use in entity and attribute declarations, see also keyword NDATA.

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OASIS
Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, among others the owner of DocBook.

OMG = Object Management Group
The OMG was formed in 1989 by a group of vendors with the aim of creating a standard architecture for distributed objects in networks. The architecture that resulted is the Common Object Request Broker architecture (CORBA).

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parser
see XML parser

PE
parameter entity, a modul used within an SGML or XML DTD, using a reference of the form %modul-name;.

Perl
Scripting language

PI
processing instruction, Part of an SGML or XML document, in the form <? ... >. PIs are instructions for applications, processing the document, e.g. editors.

Project X
Sun's freeware XML compiler written in Java. Validation is optional. Project X is part of Sun's JAXP, i.e. Java API for XML Parsing. 

prolog
Part of an SGML- or XML-document, e.g. "<?xml version="1.0"?>" (for XML). An other optional part of the prolog is the document type declaration, i.e. a set of local definitions or a reference to a DTD. In addition, a prolog may contain processing instructions and comments.

PURL
Persistent Uniform Resource Locator, a relative address of an internet resource. A PURL may appear anywhere a URL is expected. PURLs point towards an address table, where they are mapped to URLs.

Python
Programming language, useful for processing SGML and XML documents. Fourthought offers a set of Python XML tools called 4Suite.

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QuickSilver
XML document builder by BroadVision contained in their XML content management system BladeRunner.

Quilt
An XML Query Language suggested March 2000 to the W3C's XML Query Working Group by (among others) Jonathan Robie.

  • The Proposal, Quilt: an XML Query Language on the W3C's XML Query WG page,

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RDF
Resource Description Framework, an XML application, providing a mechanism to exchange metadata. RDF has yet been implemented for example in the Mozilla-based Netscape 6 preview release 1 and in FourThought's 4Suite as 4RDF.

RELAX
Regular Language for XML, an XML schema proposal by Murata Makoto that uses XML instance syntax, adopts the datatypes developed by the W3C Schema WG, and is namespace-aware. RELAX is modular with a core module based on a single namespace. It is a DTD equivalent covering the original, minimalist goals for the W3C schema effort, but is much smaller (and thus simpler) thanXML Schema.

RosettaNet
An organization set up by leading information technology companies to define and implement a common set of standards for e-business, supporting processes between supply chain partners. RosettaNet Home.

RTFtoHTML
A tool converting RTF to HTML. RTFtoHTML Homepage.

RXP
A validating namespace-aware XML parser in C by Richard Tobin. Homepage.

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Sablotron
XSLT processor in C from gingerall, i.e. Ginger Alliance Ltd. also available as a Perl package. Sablotron works on top of James Clark's expat. Current version is 0.42.

SAX = Simple API for XML
SAX is an application program interface that allows a programmer to interpret a web file that uses XML.

SAXON
A Java class library for processing of XML documents on top of SAX and DOM including an XSL processor. The SAXON Homepage.

Schema Adjuncts
XML document that contains additional, application-specific data relative to a particular schema.

Schematron
A toolkit developed by Rick Jeliffe that uses XPath to do validation based on finding tree patterns in the parsed document.

  • The Schematron Homepage on the ASCC (ACADEMICA Sinica Computing Centre) site,

Servlet
A Java application that, different from applets, runs on the server and generates HTML-pages that are sent to the client. Servlets can run on browsers that are not Java-enabled.

SGML
Standard Generalized Markup Language, Standard for documents that defines a document as an instance of a type, i.e. a DTD. The document's contents are identified by using semantic tags according to the DTD. In 1986, SGML was adopted as an ISO standard. It has been the predecessor of XML.

SMIL
Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, a W3C standard that uses XML to describe synchronized multimedia presentations.

SML
Simple Markup Language, an approach to simplify XML to make life easier for XML-consuming devices. Simplification is achieved by avoiding a number of XML features e.g. attributes and PIs.

SMTP
Simple Message Transport Protocol, protocol for Email.

socket
Combination of an IP-address and a port-number, that uniquely identifies a service on the internet. A pair of sockets, sender and receiver, uniquely identifies a network connection in TCP.

SOAP
Simple Object Access Protocol, a method invented by Microsoft to use RPC over the internet via HTTP calls. SOAP is now published as an W3C Note and implemented, among others, as part of the Apache XML Project.

SoftQuad
Vendor for HTML, SGML, and XML tools, e.g. the HTML editor HoTMetal PRO and its SGML/XML successor XMetaL. Homepage.

SOX
Schema for Object-oriented XML, schema proposal for XML, proposed to the W3C in september 1998.

Spinnaker
A project to create a next generation Apache XML parser in Java using e.g. Xerces experience.

SQL = Structured Query Language
SQL is a standard interactive and programming language for getting information from and updating a database. Although SQL is both an ANSI and an ISO standard, many database products support SQL with proprietary extensions to the standard language.

SSL = Secure Sockets Layer
SSL is a program layer created by Netscape for managing the security of message transmissions in a network.  Netscape has offered SSL as a proposed standard protocol to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a standard security approach for Web browsers and servers.

Stylesheet
A programm written in a stylesheet language for converting and/or presenting HTML, SGML, or XML documents. Stylesheet languages are e.g. CSS for HTML (and CSS2 for XML too), XSL for XML and FOSI and DSSSL for both SGML and XML.

SVG = Scalable Vector Graphics
Scalable Vector Graphics, a language for describing two-dimensional vector and mixed vector/raster graphics in XML. SVG graphic types include text and XSLT can transform XML documents into SVG output. Thus SVG is a possible replacement for XSL FO. SVG tools are provided by IBM, CSIRO and Adobe.

Swing
Sun's GUI-toolkit for Java, extending AWT.

SXP
Silfide XML Parser, an XML parser written in Java. SXP is part of XSilfide, a client/server based environment for distributing language ressources based on XML. XSilfide is a product of the Silfide project. The Silfide Project.

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tag
A tag is a generic term for a language element descriptor. The set of tags for a document or other unit of information is sometimes referred to as markup, a term that dates to pre-computer days when writers and copy editors marked up document elements with copy editing symbols or shorthand.

Tamino XML Platform
Software AG's XML Platform for Electronic Business. The name is an acronym for T ransaction A rchitecture for M anagement of IN ternet O bjects. Software AG tools contained in the Tamino XML Platform are X-Node, X-Studio and X-Bridge. These enable XML storage (X-Machine), wrapping legacy data (X-Node), building applications (X-Studio), and exchange across platforms (X-Bridge). To complete this set, Xenon includes XML tools provided by partners, e.g. extensibility's XML Authority to deal with different types of XML Schemata (DTDs, XML Schema, Tamino Schema, etc.), two XML editors, i.e. SoftQuad's XMetaL and extensibility's XML Instance, eXcelon Stylus (an XSLT editor), and Breeze XML Studio by Breeze Factor LLC. a tool to bind XML to JavaBeans. The core of the platform, Tamino XML Database, is an information server that stores and exchanges information using the XML format. Using XML as a meta-format, Tamino allows the composition of information from data that may originate from different storage systems. Exploiting XML's capability of describing data that may consist of different types (for example, relational data, graphics, sound, video or plain text), Tamino can store information as "Internet objects". Tamino Product Homepage.

TCP
Transmission Control Protocol, a protocol from the TCP/IP-transport layer. TCP is reliable, i.e. each package is acknoledged. It furthermore is connection-oriented, i.e. the connection is established via handshake, before any data is transmitted. TCP serves for communication between applications that are identified by their port-numbers upon a host.

TCP/IP
Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol, a bundle of network protocols, e.g. the Internet Protocol IP, the Transport Protocol TCP and the Application Protocols TELNET and FTP.

Topic Maps
An XML DTD incl. semantics that is designed to link XML resources to enable navigation using topics. Topic Maps uses XLink to connect resources. TOPIC MAPS.com,

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UDDI
Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration, a standard for a platform-independent, open framework for describing services on the Internet, suggested by, among others, IBM, Ariba and Microsoft, September 6, 2000. UDDI is intended mainly for B2B enhancement and is based on the W3C's XML standard and, especially on SOAP.

UFO
Unicorn Formatting Objects, a freeware XSLT processor and XSL FO implementation by Unicorn Enterprises SA written in C++ and TeX.

Unicode
The Java character set having the two flavours UTF-8 and UTF-16.

URI = Universal Resource Identifier
Universal Resource Identifier, either a URL or a URN. A URI is a way of identifying content in the web, whether it be a page of text, a video or sound clip, an image, or a program.

URL = Universal Resource Locator
Universal Resource Locator, unique address of a document or a resource on the internet in the form protocol://server domain name/pathname. Protocols are e.g. HTTP or FTP.

URN
Uniform Resource Name

UTF-8
Unicode format, that uses a variable number of bits per character, whereas UTF-16 uses 16 bits per character.

UTF-16
Unicode format that uses 16 bits per character.

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validation
Check whether a document in HTML, SGML, or XML is conformant to its specification, i.e. its DTD.

verbatim
A kind of layout in which the contents are rendered unchanged, i.e. no formatting. In HTML acchieved by the <PRE>-Tag.

VRML = Virtual Reality Modeling Language
The ISO standard to display 3D in the web.

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W3C
World Wide Web Consortium: The W3C is an industry consortium which promotes standards for the evolution of the Web and interoperability between WWW products by producing specifications and reference software. Although W3C is funded by industrial members, it is vendor-neutral, and its products are freely available. Homepage

WAP
Wireless Application Protocol, standard for accessing the internet with wireless devices, e.g. mobile phones. WAP defines structure and semantics of the Wireless Markup Language (WML) DTD. The WAP Forum,

WDDX
Web Distributed Data Exchange, standard for displaying data formats in XML incl. modules for converting language specific formats into a language independent format and vice versa.

WIDL
Web Interface Definition Language, an XML schema for describing interfaces of web pages for automatic access, developed by webMethods, proposed to the W3C in september 1997.

WebDAV
WWW Distributed Authoring and Versioning, an IETF working group for the definition of HTTP extensions necessary to enable distributed web authoring tools to be broadly interoperable.

Website
A Web site is a collection of Web files on a particular subject that includes a beginning file called a home page. From the home page, you can get to all the other pages on their site. For example, the Web site for Software AG has the home page address of http://www.softwareag.com

WML
Wireless Markup Language, the DTD used in the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).

WWW = World Wide Web
All the resources and users on the Internet that are using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

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Xalan
An XSLT processor available in both Java and C++, part of the Apache XML project.

  • Xalan-Java, version 1.2, at the Apache XML Project,
  • Xalan-C++, version 1.0, at the Apache XML Project.

XDR
XML-Data reduced, a subset of the XML-Data schema method.

Xenon
The XML ENabled Open Network, Software AG's XML software architecture. The first implentation of Xenon is the Tamino XML Platform, which bundles different tools, from both Software AG and partners, in order to provide a development platform for handling XML data. 

Xerces
Three XML parser by Apache in C++, Java, and Perl. The parser in Java (Xerces-J) understands both DTDs and XML Schema. The other two only understand DTDs. The Perl parser (XML4P) seems a bit neglected. The Xerces-J developers are currently debating a redevelopment under the name of Xerces2 or Spinnaker.

XHTML = Extensible HyperText Markup Language
Extensible HyperText Markup Language, a reformulation of HTML 4.0 in XML 1.0. XHTML is a language for building web pages that exists as a W3C Recommendation. The former proposed Recommendation caused lots of debates on account of XHTML's usage of XML namespaces. A new proposal has been published December 10th, 1999.

XInclude
XML Inclusion, processing model and syntax for XML inclusion accomplished by merging a number of XML documents. XInclude is a W3C Working Draft published by the XML Core Working Group. The XInclude model of including stuff from other resources differs slightly from the mechanism using an external entity. XInclude does not require a DTD and is processed after parsing, since it operates on information sets, i.e. the XML tree as occurs as a parsing result.

  • The XML Core Working Group's Homepage,

XLink
XML Linking Language, formerly XLL, W3C standard for the description of links within XML documents. This includes simple unidirectional hyperlinks of today's HTML, as well as more sophisticated links like relationships between more than two resources. XLink is a Candidate Recommendation since 3 July 2000.

XLL
Extensible Linking Language, second part of the W3C's XML specification concerning hyperlinks. XLL is thus corresponding to SGML's linking standard HyTime. XLL consists of the linking standard XLink and the addressing standard XPointer. The name XLL is not used anymore and has generally been replaced by XLink.

X-Machine
The X-Machine is the engine that drives Tamino. Its basic function is to store XML objects in and retrieve them from the respective data sources. It does this based on the schemas defined by the administrator in the Data Map.

XMetaL
A validating XML editor by SoftQuad, contained in Software AG's Tamino XML Platform.

XML
Extensible Markup Language, Modification of the SGML standard. In contrast to SGML documents XML documents may exist without having their schema described in a DTD. XML documents consist (mainly) of text and tags, and the tags imply a tree structure upon the document. Is the XML document properly structered, i.e. the tags do nest, the document is said to be 'well-formed'. Is there, in addition, a DTD to which the document conforms, it is called 'valid'. Specification

XML Authority
A visual Editor for XML schemas by extensibility. This tool internally deals with XML schemas using an abstract schema representation. Among others, it can cope with DTDs and XML Schema. XML Authority is contained in Software AG's Tamino XML Platform.

XML Base
A facility for defining base URIs for parts of XML documents. Relative URIs in those parts are meant to be resolved w.r.t. this base URI. The XML Base document is a result of the W3C's XLink Working Group.

XML-Data
A means for XML schema specification. XML-Data extends the capabilities of DTDs towards data types.

XMLDOM
Actually "Microsoft.XMLDOM", an ActiveXControl that enables access to XML instances according to the W3C's DOM paradigm.

XMLHTTP
Actually "Microsoft.XMLHTTP" or "XMLHttpRequest Object", an ActiveXControl that enables access to instances of HTTP request instances especially it enables sending and receiving HTTP requests.

XML Instance
A schema (meaning DTD and XML Schema) sensitive XML editor by extensibility, contained in Software AG's Tamino XML Platform.

XML Island
A piece of XML code contained in an HTML document.

XML Parser
An XML parser is a processor that reads an XML document and determines the structure and properties of the data. It breaks the data up into parts and provides them to other components. If the parser goes beyond the XML rules for well-formedness and validates the document against an XML DTD, the parser is said to be a "validating" parser.

There are several XML parsers available on the market:

XML Pro
XML editor by Vervet Logic, currently in beta-release, contains features as a tree-editor and wizards. Homepage.

XML-QL
XML Query Language, language for extracting data from XML documents, for converting between different structures (DTDs), for integrating documents, and for XML-queries. XML-QL is derived from the SQL-standard. The Submission to the W3C.

XML-RPC
A means of using remote procedure calls over the internet.

XML Schema
The most recent design for providing XML schemata as released within two W3C working drafts currently in Last-Call. Schemata serve for describing the structure and constraining the contents of XML documents and associating datatypes with XML element types and attributes. Previous schema designs include DTDs, XML-Data, XDR, RDF, SOX, DCDs, XSchema and DDML. Although the XML Schema WG is overdue to bring their WDs to Recommendation, there are still problems with the design. One of the efforts to overcome those is the MSL effort.

XML Server
Any HTTP web server that is able to handle XML specifically, e.g. apply server-side stylesheets. See e.g. the Exeter XML Server.

XML Signature
Addendum to an XML document containing information so that the authenticity of the signed document and also the identity of the signer can be verified.

XML Spy
XML editor for Windows by Icon Informations-Systeme GmbH (Wien) supporting the stylesheet languages CSS and XSL.Product Information.

XMLX
XML Exchange, Forum for XML DTD exchange, Homepage.

XMTP
eXtensible Mail Transport Protocol, a mapping of MIME/SMTP to XML. XMTP enables to represent MIME messages as XML documents

XP
An XML parser in Java by James Clark. James Clark's XP Homepage

XPath
XML Path Language, a language for addressing parts of an XML document, designed to be used by both XSLT and XPointer. The language mainly consists of location paths and expressions. A location path is e.g. child::para[position=(1)] that selects the first para child of the current context node. Expressions are the usual expressions, e.g. boolean, numbers, etc. and node sets.

XPointer
Part of the W3C's XLink standard, specifies how to declare addresses within XLink expressions. XPointer specifies the part of a URL behind the '#' that references parts of an XML document, i.e. the fragment identifier. XPointer is based on the W3C's XPath Recommendation.

X-Query
The Software AG proprietary XML query language (very similar to XPath).

XQL
XML Query Language, a query language that uses XML as its data model. XQL has been proposed to the W3C in 1997 and thus became a main issue in the W3C's 'XML Query WG'.

XSD
XML Schema Declaration, suffix of files containing a description of an XML schema according to the XML Schema specification.

XSL = Extensible Stylesheet Language
XSL is a language for creating a style sheet that describes how data sent over the Web using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) is to be presented to the user.

XLS FO
XSL Formatting Objects, a formatting vocabulary forming one half of XSL (besides XSLT).

XSLT
XSL Transformations, a language for transforming XML documents into other XML documents.

XSLT is designed for use as part of XSL, which is a stylesheet language for XML. In addition to XSLT, XSL includes an XML vocabulary for specifying formatting. XSL specifies the styling of an XML document by using XSLT to describe how the document is transformed into another XML document that uses the formatting vocabulary.

XSLT is a W3C specification but also part 2 of the XSL specification.

XSP
eXtensible Server Pages, an XML DTD and a development methodology to generate dynamic XML by server side processing of client's requests. Such a specification is useful to define an open and standard way to develop and maintain dynamic XML server pages.

XT
A Java implementation of the XSLT standard by James Clark. James Clark's XT Page.

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