Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » W3C improving XML

August 17, 2006 | Comments: (0)

W3C improving XML

TAGS: Web Services

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) this week published new editions of four core XML data exchange specifications, featuring corrections for known errata and clarifications where potential misunderstanding could have occurred, W3C said.

Stability provided by these XML specifications underlies a steady increased in W3C technologies for querying, transforming, naming, encrypting and optimizing XML, according to W3C. Changes to the specifications were described as minor by W3C representative Ian Jacobs.

"These are solid specs," he said.

Specifications include the fourth edition of XML 1.0 and the second editions of XML 1.1, Namespaces in XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML 1.1. XML 1.0 is the main XML specification while XML 1.1 adds support for internationalization. Namespaces technology features a mechanism for mixng XML dialects.

W3C has a number of ongoing developments afoot in XML.

By the end of the year, W3C expects to publish W3C Recommendations for XML Query 1.0 and XSLT 2.0 (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations). W3C also is revising XML Schema, which is used in SOAP-based Web services, and planning additions to XML Query that extend beyond version 1.0.

The XML Processing Model Working Group soon will publish a first draft of the XML language for specifying sequences of operations on XML documents, such as transformation, validation, inclusion and decryption based on current XML pipeline products and free and open source designs.

Also, XML-specific technologies for improving the efficiency of storage, transmission and processing in XML have been developed. A W3C Working Group on Efficient XML Interchange has been chartered to expand XML into further domains requiring greater performance and additional capabilities such as streaming.

Posted by Paul Krill on August 17, 2006 09:36 AM

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