An Example of a "Learning Process" Journal (using the 2 colored box format)

• Teach Yourself XML in 21 days (2003) by Steven Holzner: Day 6 (continued)

6:30 am

It has been a couple of days since I was last on this. Beginning on page 189, the idea is to work through an example. The fundamental idea of a schema is that it is an XML file that contains detailed information about the valid form of the data in another XML file.

I have opened the file ch06_07.xsd in XMLspy

Day 6 [p. 189 - 205]

• "The first thing to note about an XML schema is that it's a well-formed XML document." [p. 192]

• I seem to follow the text, but am not yet able to use XMLspy on my own to create a schema for my amportal3 file. Frustrating.
• I have a look at the Help menu for XMLspy and locate a tutorial. This looks promising.
• As I begin the tutorial, I notice that I am creating the schema file before I create the actual XML file. This makes sense, now that I think about it, but I began a couple of weeks ago by creating the XML file amportal3. I will now pretend that I haven't done this, and will imagine that I am just beginning. Already I feel I have overcome a major hurdle.

7:20 am

• XMLSPY 2004 Home Edition Tutorial

7:30 am

• I will be creating 3 (!) files:
  • the XML schema file
  • the XML data file
  • an XSLT stylesheet,
    and I will be creating them in that order. Good.
• Success! I have just created a schema file called amportal with three elements (coffee, categories & w3c) and have added 9 child elements to the categories. This corresponds to the data structure of the XML file amportal3 that I created some time ago.
• I have also specified the number of items for the first two categories, and that they will be URIs.
• Time to leave for coffee meeting, but I am very pleased with the last half hour!

8:15 am

• I have completed the preliminary form of the schema for the amportal. I am not sure if I have correctly specified the type for the header and footer which involve images, but I think the rest is fine.
• The next task is to link this schema file with the XML file.
• The schema file is both well-formed and valid.
• I am now running into difficulties with handling images in XML & schemas.

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