Inside Coldfusion MX

Wow! We have really covered a lot in this chapter, and there is still a lot more to come in the next two chapters. Before we move on, however, let's recap what you learned in this chapter. We have covered the following:

• What XML is and how to create XML

• What a DTD is and how to create one

• What XML Schema is and how to create an XSD

• How to dynamically create XML with ColdFusion as well as XML document objects

• How to parse and extract information from an XML document using CFXML and ColdFusion MX XML functions

As you have seen, XML is a straightforward way of marking up data and is easy to create in ColdFusion. Although parsing XML and extracting valuable information is slightly more complex, it's not much harder than working with arrays and structures. The skills you have acquired in this chapter are the cornerstones to being able to create XML-enabled applications.

In the next chapter, we will explore much more complex methods of manipulating XML data, transforming XML with XSLT, and using Xpath to search or query XML.