XML and SQL Server 2000

This Introductory chapter covers the Extensible Markup Language (XML), and the following chapter covers the Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT). These chapters are for people who are quite knowledgeable about Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 but have little or no knowledge of XML and how to manipulate it. Because these two chapters are introductory in nature, if you are familiar with XML and XSLT, you can skip them and start with Chapter 3, "Internet Information Server and Virtual Directories."

This chapter will cover the following topics:

• The origin and promise of XML

• The components of XML documents

• How to write basic DTDs

• The problems with DTDs

• The W3C schema specification that is to replace DTDs

• The components of schema documents

• How to write a basic schema declaration document

This chapter is not intended to be an exhaustive discussion of XML, Document Type Definitions (DTDs), or XML schema. It will cover the basics of XML documents, DTDs, problems with DTDs, and the proposed XML schema solution to these problems.

Before we get to the details of these topics, however, let's talk about the history that has lead up to the present state of things.