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XML Specifications, Proposals and Vocabularies
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A master list of all XML-related specifications and proposals, developed by
or submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This list also
contains domain-specific XML vocabularies, some of which have not yet
been submitted to the W3C for consideration. Note that we have relegated
non-W3C vocabularies to a separate section.
Our list includes documents pertaining to XML, XSL, XLL, DOM, RDF, Metadata,
and more.
To fully understand the terms Recommendation, Proposed Recommendation,
Working Draft, and Notes, see the WDVL article
Next Generation HTML:
The Big Picture, especially the section on
the W3C process.
On this page, an XML Vocabulary is denoted
by the word "[Vocabulary]" after its formal name.
If by chance you can't find what you're looking for
here, try the parent XML directory.
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Note: For potentially more current information, refer to the
Recommendations section of
the W3C Technical Reports & Publications page.
- Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 Specification
- This is the current specification of XML syntax which became a W3C Recommendation
on February 10, 1998.
"The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a subset of SGML that is
completely described in this document. Its goal is to enable generic
SGML [a standard since 1986] to be served, received, and processed on the Web in the way that
is now possible with HTML. XML has been designed for ease of
implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML."
Readers may find Tim Bray's
Annotated XML Specification
more helpful. Refer also to WDVL's Introduction to XML: Structuring Data for the Web.
- Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and
Syntax Specification
- Resource Description Framework became a Proposed Recommendation on February 22, 1999.
RDF is the basis for taking the Web from machine-readable to machine-understandable.
RDF is a foundation for processing metadata, which is in general, information about data;
in this case, metadata is data describing Web resources.
RDF provides interoperability between applications that exchange machine-understandable
information on the Web.
"RDF can be used in a variety
of application areas; for example: in resource discovery to provide
better search engine capabilities, in cataloging for describing
the content and content relationships available at a particular Web site,
page, or digital library, by intelligent software agents to facilitate
knowledge sharing and exchange, in content rating, in describing
collections of pages that represent a single logical "document",
for describing intellectual property rights of Web pages, and for
expressing the privacy preferences of a user as well as the privacy
policies of a Web site. RDF with digital signatures will be
key to building the "Web of Trust" for electronic commerce, collaboration,
and other applications."
RDF uses the Extensible Markup Language [XML] encoding as its interchange syntax.
RDF also requires the XML namespace facility to precisely associate each property
with the schema that defines the property.
This example is an edited version of the first page of the source of the
RDF specification itself:
<rdf:Description about=""
xmlns:rdf="http://w3.org/TR/1999/PR-rdf-syntax-19990105#"
dc:Title="Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and
Syntax Specification"
dc:Description="The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is
a foundation for processing metadata; it provides
interoperability between applications that exchange
machine-understandable information on the Web. RDF
emphasizes facilities to enable automated processing of
Web resources."
dc:Publisher="World Wide Web Consortium"
dc:Date="1999-01-05"
dc:Format="text/html"
dc:Type="technical specification"
dc:Language="en">
<dc:Subject rdf:resource="http://purl.org/net/ddc/025.316"
ddc:Class="025.316"
ddc:Heading="Machine-readable catalog record formats" />
<dc:Creator>
<rdf:Bag rdf:_1="Ora Lassila"
rdf:_2="Ralph Swick" />
</dc:Creator>
</rdf:Description>
The RDF specification does not contain markup declarations.
Rick Jelliffe created a simple DTD for RDF
and a plain text version. From Academia Sinica, Taipei.
- Namespaces in XML
- Namespaces in XML became a W3C Recommendation on January 14, 1999.
Namespaces provide a simple method for qualifying element and attribute
names used in XML documents by associating them with namespaces identified by URI references.
This is necessary to avoid collisions that would otherwise occur when, in a single XML
doucment, multiple XML vocabularies are referenced and they happen to use some of the same
names for elements and/or attributes.
Names from XML namespaces may appear as qualified names, which contain a single colon, separating the name
into a namespace prefix (which selects the namespace) and a local part. An example from the
spec follows:
<x xmlns:edi='http://ecommerce.org/schema'>
<!-- 'price' namespace is http://ecommerce.org/schema -->
<edi:price units='Euro'>32.18</edi:price>
</x>
- Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification
- After five Working Drafts, the DOM Level 1 Proposed Recommendation
was announced on August 18, 1998. DOM became a W3C Recommendation
on October 1, 1998.
If you program in JavaScript, you should follow what happens to DOM,
which also will lead to a common base for Dynamic HTML (DHTML).
According to the abstract from the W3C document,
"This specification defines the Document Object Model Level 1, a
platform- and language-neutral interface that allows programs and
scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and
style of documents. The Document Object Model provides a
standard set of objects for representing HTML and XML documents,
a standard model of how these objects can be combined, and a
standard interface for accessing and manipulating them. Vendors
can support the DOM as an interface to their proprietary data
structures and APIs, and content authors can write to the standard
DOM interfaces rather than product-specific APIs, thus increasing
interoperability on the Web."
DOM is applicable to
JavaScript,
Dynamic HTML,
XML,
and HTML.
See also the W3C DOM home page,
the W3C DOM Activity page,
and especially the
W3C DOM FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).
And of course, see WDVL's DOM page.
- Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) 1.0 Specification [Vocabulary]
- Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile")
is the W3C standard for multimedia authoring.
"SMIL allows integrating a set of independent multimedia objects into a
synchronized multimedia presentation. Using SMIL, an author can:
1) describe the temporal behavior of the presentation;
2) describe the layout of the presentation on a screen;
3) associate hyperlinks with media objects."
SMIL uses XML for its syntax, so there is
a SMIL DTD.
Unfortunately, Microsoft and Macromedia have taken an
anti-SMIL position,
although support from RealNetworks, DEC, and Netscape is strong.
For major SMIL sites, see
WebDeveloper.com's SMIL Links
and Resources and also
Just SMIL.
- Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) 1.0 Specification [Vocabulary]
- "MathML is an XML application for describing mathematical
notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of
MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed
on the Web....This specification of the markup language MathML is
intended primarily for a readership consisting of those who will be
developing or implementing renderers or editors using it, or software
that will communicate using MathML as a protocol for input or output."
Since MathML uses XML syntax, there is a
MathML DTD.
- WebCGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) [Vocabulary]
- WebCGM became a W3C Proposed Recommendation early in December 1998.
If WebCGM follows past patterns, it will become a full Recommendation within
1-2 months. Excerpt:
"CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) has been an
ISO standard for vector and composite
vector/raster picture definition since 1987. It has
been a registered MIME type since 1995. CGM
has a significant following in technical illustration,
electronic documentation, geophysical data
visualization, amongst other application areas.
WebCGM is a profile for the effective application
of CGM in Web electronic documents. WebCGM
has been a joint effort of the CGM Open
Consortium, in collaboration with W3C staff
under the W3C-LA project. It represents an
important interoperability agreement amongst
major users and implementors of CGM, and
thereby unifies current diverse approaches to
CGM utilization in Web document applications.
WebCGM's clear and unambiguous conformance
requirements will enhance interoperability of
implementations, and it should be possible to
leverage existing CGM validation tools, test
suites, and the product certification testing
services for application to WebCGM . While
WebCGM is a binary file format and is not
"stylable", nevertheless WebCGM follows
published W3C requirements for a scalable
graphics format where such are applicable. The
design criteria for the graphical content of
WebCGM aimed at a balance between graphical
expressive power on the one hand, and
simplicity and implementability on the other. A
small but powerful set of metadata elements is
standardized in WebCGM, to support the
functionalities of: hyperlinking and document
navigation; picture structuring and layering; and,
search and query on WebCGM picture."
Note: For potentially more current information, refer to the
Proposed Recommendations section of
the W3C Technical Reports & Publications page.
- Resource Description Framework (RDF) Schemas
- RDF Schemas became a Proposed Recommendation on March 3, 1999.
"Resource description communities require the ability to say certain
things about certain kinds of resources. For describing bibliographic
resources, for example, descriptive attributes including "author", "title",
and "subject" are common. For digital certification, attributes such as
"checksum" and "authorization" are often required. The declaration of
these properties (attributes) and their corresponding semantics are
defined in the context of RDF as an RDF schema. A schema defines
not only the properties of the resource (Title, Author, Subject, Size,
Color, etc.) but may also define the kinds of resources being described
(books, Web pages, people, companies, etc.).
This document does not specify a vocabulary of descriptive elements
such as "author". Instead, it specifies the mechanisms needed to define
such elements, to define the classes of resources they may be used
with, to restrict possible combinations of classes and relationships, and
to detect violations of those restrictions. Thus, this document defines a
schema specification language. More succinctly, the RDF Schema
mechanism provides a basic type system for use in RDF models. It
defines resources and properties such as Class and subClassOf that
are used in specifying application-specific schemas."
- Associating Stylesheets with XML Documents
- Associating Stylesheets with XML Documents became a Proposed Recommendation on January 14, 1999.
"This document allows a stylesheet to be associated with an XML document by
including one or more processing instructions with a target of xml-stylesheet in
the document's prolog....There was an urgent requirement for a specification for stylesheet
linking that could be completed in time for the next release from major browser vendors."
Note: For potentially more current information, refer to the
Working Drafts section of
the W3C Technical Reports & Publications page.
- Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Specification
- Just when most of us were catching on to DOM, Level 1, W3C was busy preparing the Working Draft
for DOM, Level 2, which Lauren Wood et al delivered on December 18, 1998. Here's how they describe it:
"This specification defines the Document Object Model Level 2, a platform- and
language-neutral interface that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and
update the content, structure and style of documents. The Document Object Model Level 2
builds on the Document Object Model Level 1. Level 2 adds interfaces for a Cascading
Style Sheets object model, an event model, and a query interface, amongst others.
This first release of the Document Object Model Level 2 does not have all these interfaces.
It contains interfaces for the Cascading Style Sheets object model, the Range object model,
filters and iterators, and the Events object model. The other interfaces will be added in future
versions of this specification."
- XHTML 1.0: The Extensible HyperText Markup Language: A Reformulation of HTML 4.0 in XML 1.0 [Vocabulary]
- XHTML (formerly called simply Reformulating HTML in XML)
is the third Working Draft from the new HTML Working Group, published March 4, 1999.
This is a very significant step for the W3C since it specifies how
(as they have previously stated) all future HTML changes will be expressed in terms of XML.
Note: The first version of this Working Draft used the codename Voyager, but the new name appears to be
XHTML. See also the HTML home page and
the HTML Activity page.
- Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL), Version 1.0
- The first XSL Working Draft was
announced
by the W3C on August 18, 1998. The second draft was published
Dec. 16, 1998. Over one year in the making
(since the now obsolete
initial submission
by Microsoft, ArborText and Inso Corp),
this draft contains many significant changes from anything you may have
read about XSL before. The XSL Working Draft was
endorsed by
Adobe, Bitstream, Enigma, IBM, Inso, Lotus, Microsoft,
Netscape, RivCom, SoftQuad and Sun Microsystems.
Essentially, Extensible Style Language is to XML what
CSS
is to HTML. XSL provides the presentation aspects that may
be applied to the structure of a document marked up in XML.
However, XSL is far more powerful than CSS since it is based
on the even more flexible DSSSL
(Document Style Semantics and Specification Language)
"The powerful capabilities provided by XSL allow:
formatting of source elements based on ancestry/descendency, position, and uniqueness;
the creation of formatting constructs including generated text and graphics;
the definition of reusable formatting macros;
writing-direction independent stylesheets;
extensible set of formatting objects."
See also the XSL section of the W3C Style pages
and the XSL Requirements Summary.
- XML Linking Language (XLink)
- On 3/3/98, the 7/97 Extensible Linking Language (XLL) Working Draft
was split into 3 pieces: XLink: linking mechanisms Working Draft,
XPointer: addressing schemes Working Draft, and Design Principles Note.
XLink describes how to create uni-directional links as well as
multi-directional, extended links. Link Behavior is specified by
show and/or actuate attributes. Link types include inline,
out-of-line, extended, and extended link groups.
See also XML Linking Language (XLink) Design Principles
and XML XLink Requirements Version 1.0.
- XML Pointer Language (XPointer)
- XPointer (Extended Pointer) describes how to construct specific
references to elements, character strings, and other parts of
XML documents, whether or not they bear an explicit ID attribute;
link to chunks in someone else's documents.
See also
XML XPointer Requirements Version 1.0.
- XML Fragment Interchange
- XML Fragment Interchange is a Working Draft from the XML Fragments Working Group.
"The XML standard supports logical documents composed of possibly several entities. It may
be desirable to view or edit one or more of the entities or parts of entities while having no
interest, need, or ability to view or edit the entire document. The problem, then, is how to
provide to a recipient of such a fragment the appropriate information about the context that
fragment had in the larger document that is not available to the recipient. The XML Fragment
WG is chartered with defining a way to send fragments of an XML document--regardless of
whether the fragments are predetermined entities or not--without having to send all of the
containing document up to the part in question. This document defines Version 1.0 of the
[eventual] W3C Recommendation that addresses this issue."
- P3P Harmonized Vocabulary Specification
- Description to be added soon.
- Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
- SVG is the first Working Draft on this topic from the
Scalable Vector Graphics Working Group.
"SVG is a language for describing two-dimensional graphics in XML. SVG allows for three types
of graphic objects: vector graphic shapes (e.g., paths consisting of straight lines and curves),
images and text. Graphical objects can be grouped, styled, transformed and composited into
previously rendered objects. The feature set includes nested transformations, clipping paths,
alpha masks, filter effects, template objects and extensibility.
SVG drawings can be dynamic and interactive. The Document Object Model (DOM) for SVG
allows for straightforward and efficient vector graphics animation via scripting. A rich set of event
handlers such as onmouseover and onclick can be assigned to any SVG graphical object.
Because of its compatibility and leveraging of other Web standards, features like scripting can be
done on HTML and SVG elements simultaneously within the same Web page."
- Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Requirements
- "The W3C has chartered a Scalable Vector Graphics working group to
produce a specification for an SVG format, written as a modular XML
tagset and usable as an XML namespace, which can be widely implemented
in browsers and authoring tools and which is suitable for widespread
adoption by the content authoring community as a replacement for many
current uses of raster graphics.
This will mean that the graphics in Web documents will be smaller,
faster, more interactive, and be displayable on a wider range of
device resolutions from small mobile devices through office computer
monitors to high resolution printers. This will be a significant
advance in Web functionality. Interoperability, both in multiple
browsers across multiple platforms and in multiple authoring tools
(both read and write), is a prime focus.... This document lists both
SVG Design Goals and SVG Detailed Requirements...."
The home page for the W3C graphics activity is
http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Activity.
The graphics activity topics are: portability, formats, content negotiation, plug-ins,
on-demand conversion, quality/metadata, scalability, and responsiveness.
Note: For potentially more current information, refer to the
Notes section of
the W3C Technical Reports & Publications page.
- Document Definition Markup Language (DDML) Specification, Version 1.0
-
DDML "is a schema language for XML documents.
DDML encodes the logical (as opposed to physical) content of DTDs in an XML document. This allows schema
information to be explored and used with widely available XML tools.
DDML is deliberately simple, providing an initial base for implementations. While introducing as few complicating
factors as possible, DDML has been designed with future extensions, such as data typing and schema reuse, in mind."
Compare to SOX, DCD, and XML-Data.
- Schema for Object-oriented XML (SOX) [Vocabulary]
- SOX builds upon XML-Data and DCD to provide a major set of enhancements
to XML useful for software development (datatypes, inheritance,
embedded documentation, etc.).
"SOX provides an alternative to XML DTDs for modeling markup
relationships to enable more efficient software development processes
for distributed applications. SOX also provides basic intrinsic
datatypes, an extensible datatyping mechanism, content model and
attribute interface inheritance, a powerful namespace mechanism, and
embedded documentation. As compared to XML DTDs, SOX dramatically
decreases the complexity of supporting interoperation among
heterogenous applications by facilitating software mapping of XML data
structures, expressing domain abstractions and common relationships
directly and explicitly, enabling reuse at the document design and the
application programming levels, and supporting the generation of
common application components."
- XML Data
- Description to be added soon.
- Introduction to RDF Metadata
- Description to be added soon.
- A Discussion of the Relationship Between RDF-Schema and UML
- See also the vocabularies XMI and UXF elsewhere on this page.
Description to be added soon.
- W3C Data Formats
- Description to be added soon.
- Web Architecture: Extensible Languages
- Description to be added soon.
-
Document Content Description for XML (DCD)
- DCD was submitted by Microsoft, IBM, and Textuality.
"This document proposes a structural schema facility,
Document Content Description (DCD), for specifying rules covering
the structure and content of XML documents.
The DCD proposal incorporates a subset of the XML-Data Submission
and expresses it in a way which is consistent with the ongoing W3C
RDF (Resource Description Framework) effort; in particular, DCD is an RDF
vocabulary. DCD is intended to define document constraints in an XML syntax;
these constraints may be used in the same fashion as traditional XML DTDs. DCD
also provides additional properties, such as basic datatypes."
-
XML-QL: A Query Language for XML
- XML-QL is the work of AT&T Labs, INRIA, University of Pennsylvania,
and University of Washington.
XML-QL is a query language for XML which has a
SELECT-WHERE construct, like SQL, and borrows features
of query languages recently developed by the database
research community for semistructured data.
"One important application [of XML] is interchange of electronic data
(EDI) between two or more data sources on the Web. This
problem is increasingly important as more businesses
choose to provide access to their databases and to exchange
data with related businesses and organizations. In this
note, we focus on XML's application to EDI. Specifically, we
take a database view, as opposed to document view, of
XML: we consider an XML document to be a database and a
DTD to be a database schema."
- DrawML, Markup for Scalable and Intelligent Drawings [Vocabulary]
- DrawML is a 2D scalable graphics language designed to
facilitate the creation of simple
technical drawings. Furthermore (and most importantly),
DrawML focuses on the process
of maintaining and refining a drawing.
A drawing should be as easy to update as the document it resides in.
DrawML is based on the following requirements and criteria:
-
It should be possible to embed drawings in SGML/XML documents in
the same way as CALS tables are embedded.
-
It should be possible reuse elements from the parent DTD
inside the embedded drawing.
-
When structure is added to drawings, it should be possible
to define algorithms to handle the positioning and automatic resizing of visual elements.
-
The typical drawing is not WYSIWYG.
The reason for the focus on maintenance is the increased importance of intranets.
Up to now internet technology has been used primarily for publishing. People working within
an intranet expect to create and change documents on-the-fly.
- Signed Document Markup Language (SDML) [Vocabulary]
- Description to be added soon.
- Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol [Vocabulary]
- Vignette, Adobe Systems, Sun Microsystems, News Internet Services,
Channelware Inc. contributed this Note to W3C.
"This document describes the Information and Content Exchange
protocol for use by content syndicators and their subscribers.
The ICE protocol
defines the roles and responsibilities of syndicators and subscribers,
defines the format and method of content exchange, and provides
support for management and control of syndication relationships. We
expect ICE to be useful in automating content exchange and reuse, both
in traditional publishing contexts and in business-to-business
relationships."
- XML in HTML Meeting Report
- Description to be added soon.
- Hyper Graphics Markup Language (HGML) [Vocabulary]
- Description to be added soon.
- Vector Markup Language (VML) [Vocabulary]
- Description to be added soon.
- Precision Graphics Markup Language (PGML) [Vocabulary]
- Description to be added soon.
- WebBroker: Distributed Object Communication on the Web
- Description to be added soon.
- Displaying SMIL Basic Layout with a CSS2 Rendering engine
- Description to be added soon.
- Statement on the Intent and Use of PICS: Using PICS Well
- Description to be added soon.
- Web Interface Definition Language (WIDL) [Vocabulary]
- WIDL from WebMethods, Inc. was one of the earliest vocabularies, a small DTD that defines
Services, Inputs, Outputs, Bindings, Variables, and Conditions.
WIDL web-enables non-browser applications.
- The Open Software Description Format (OSD) [Vocabulary]
- Description to be added soon.
- Channel Definition Format (CDF) [Vocabulary]
- Description to be added soon.
None of the following XML vocabularies have been submitted to the W3C.
However, that status might change at any time. Furthermore, many of these
have (or will) become de facto standards regardless of their connection to W3C.
- Astronomical Instrument Markup Language (AIML) [Vocabulary]
- AIML is the first implementation of the more general
Instrument Markup Language (IML).
These vocabularies are under development by
NASA/GSFC and
AppNet, Inc.
Dialects such as PAML (Pipeline Algorithm ML) and IGS (Instrument GUI Stylesheet [XSL])
will be added in the near future.
AIML is an instrument description that encompasses instrument characteristics,
control commands, data stream descriptions (including image and housekeeping data),
message formats, communication mechanisms, and pipeline algorithm descriptions. AIML
also supports role-specific documentation and GUI component generation.
- Astronomical Markup Language (AML) [Vocabulary]
-
- Damien Guillaume and Fionn Murtagh
(University of Ulster, Observatoire Astronomique deStrasbourg)
"....have defined an XML language for astronomy, called AML
(Astronomical Markup Language), able to represent meta-information for
astronomical objects, tables, articles and authors. The various AML
documents created have links between them, and an innovative tool can
cluster the documents with a graph-partitioning algorithm using the
links. The result is displayed on a density map similar to Kohonen
Self-Organising Maps...."
Astronomical Markup Language is "....aimed at being a standard
exchange format for metadata in astronomy. AML now supports the
following objects (in the object-oriented sense): astronomical object,
article, table, set of tables, image, person. This means that all
these objects can be described with the same language, allowing easier
establishing of links between them, and the creation of programs
handling all these objects with the same user interface."
The AML DTD
and many examples including an applet viewer are provided.
- Biopolymer Markup Language (BIOML) [Vocabulary]
- BIOML is "designed to be used for the annotation of biopolymer
sequence information. BIOML would allow the full specification of all
experimental information known about molecular entities composed of
biopolymers, such as proteins and genes."
- Chemical Markup Language (CML) [Vocabulary]
- CML was one of the first XML applications, dating back to 1996 and 1997.
"CML is a powerful generic tool for management of molecular and
technical information, especially geared to Inter- and Intra-net use.
Object-Oriented, based on Java and SGML it covers a wide range of
chemical disciplines, some of which are shown in the screenshots from
the Java-based CMLviewer software."
See also the entry on the JUMBO browser
in WDVL's XML Software Guide.
- Commerce XML (cXML) [Vocabulary]
- cXML is a new proposed standard being developed by "more
than 40 leading companies" for business-to-business electronic commerce.
"cXML defines a request/response process for the exchange of
transaction information. These business processes include purchase orders, change orders,
acknowledgments, status updates, ship notifications and payment transactions. The contributors to the
cXML initiative are focused on achieving reference implementations through creation and rapid iteration of
cXML. The cXML specification, including reference production implementations and associated
implementation knowledge, will be submitted to the appropriate standards organizations. The cXML
initiative is therefore complementary to existing XML initiatives led by CommerceNet, RosettaNet,
Information & Content Exchange (ICE) and Open Buying on the Internet (OBI). The cXML specification
will be made publicly available in March 1999."
- Common Business Library (xCBL)
- "Commerce One's Common Business Library (xCBL) 2.0 is the
first open XML specification for the cross-industry exchange of
business documents such as product descriptions, purchase
orders, invoices, and shipping schedules. xCBL 2.0 is a set of
XML building blocks and a document framework that allows the
creation of robust, reusable, XML documents for electronic
commerce. Using the xCBL 2.0 document framework,
businesses everywhere can seamlessly exchange business
documents of different types, resulting in frictionless electronic
commerce across multiple trading communities. For businesses
already using traditional Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
standards, xCBL 2.0 provides a transition path to an
XML-based commerce capability."
For a related effort, note the
eCo Framework Project and Working Group.
CommerceNet is chartering the eCo Framework Project and Working Group
"to develop a common framework for interoperability among XML-based
application standards and key electronic commerce environments. The
project's working group will develop a specification for content names
and definitions in electronic commerce documents, and an interoperable
transaction framework specification. The eCo Framework Working Group
is chartered to define a common framework from an ever-growing
complement of electronic commerce related specifications, including
Catalog Information Specification, Channel Definition Format (CDF),
Common Business Library (CBL), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI),
Internet Content Exchange (ICE), Open Buying on the Internet (OBI),
Open Financial Exchange (OFX), Open Trading Protocol (OTP), and XML.
The working group, modelled after the successful Davenport and XML
working groups, includes industry experts from Hewlett-Packard, IBM,
Intel, Sun Microsystems, RosettaNet, and Veo Systems."
-
Conceptual Knowledge Markup Language (CKML) [Vocabulary]
- [NOTE: Links to http://asimov.eecs.wsu.edu/WAVE/Ontologies/CKML/
are no longer responding.]
CKML follows the philosophy of Conceptual Knowledge Processing
(CKP), a principled approach to knowledge representation and data analysis
being developed by Rudolf Wille and colleagues at the Technische Hochschule
Darmstadt. This approach "advocates methods and instruments of Conceptual
Knowledge Processing which support people in their rational thinking,
judgement and acting and promote critical discussion."
CKML is an extension of OML.
Both are part of WAVE (Web Analysis and Visualization Environment).
- Extensible Logfile Format (XLF) [Vocabulary]
- "XLF is XML-based Log Format designed to be extensible and universal....
The XLF Initiative is organized by Don Park, CTO of Docuverse, to
create the XLF specification. Currently there are about 30
participants from XML, Server, and Log Analyzer industries. Initiative
participants communicate primarily over the XLF mailing list
concerning design issues."
- FlixML [Vocabulary]
-
FlixML is an interesting application for creating descriptions of B movies.
FlixML is intended mostly as a tutorial or demo application, one which
exercises a reasonably broad range of XML features and facilities
(including XLink and XPointer).
The FlixML DTD
is also available.
- Human Resources Markup Language (HRML) [Vocabulary]
-
"HireScape is committed to developing and
supporting standards that streamline HR-related transactions. Our first area
of focus is on helping develop "HR EDI" standards by which "recruitment
data" can be transacted between entities such as corporations, job boards,
applicant tracking systems, enterprise staffing applications, etc. The
emergence of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) has provided a
technically sound basis for expressing such standards. HRML (Human
Resources Markup Language) is compliant with XML syntax, and in this,
the first release, we present a 'well-formed' (non-type-valid) syntax for
representing job listings. We are formalizing this with a DTD, which will
very soon be made publicly available."
- Human Resources XML (HR XML) [Vocabulary]
-
"Some of the possible benefits of using
XML to describe HR data and transactions are:
Resumes, job postings, and other recruiting data could be more easily
exchanged between employers, on-line job banks, applicant tracking
systems, recruiters, and recruiting systems. Richly descriptive XML
for resumes and job announcements could improve recruiting results by
making it easier to search, index, and retrieve resumes and job
postings. XML would make it easier to exchange data between systems
made by different vendors. Some data capture and reprocessing tasks
could be eliminated since XML-compliant HR documents (for example, a
performance appraisal prepared with an XML-compliant word processor)
could be loaded into directly into a database."
- Java Speech Markup Language (JSML) [Vocabulary]
- "The Java Speech Markup Language (JSML) is used by applications to annotate text
input to Java Speech API speech synthesizers. The JSML elements provide a speech
synthesizer with detailed information on how to say the text."
- Learning Material Markup Language (LMML) [Vocabulary]
- " LMML is an implementation of the
XML binding of the teachware-specific meta-model described in
Adaptive Knowledge Management: A Meta-Modeling Approach and its Binding to XML, 2000. "
- Music Markup Language (MusicML) [Vocabulary]
- MusicML uses a Java applet to parse an
instance of a Music Markup Language document.
The applet renders each element into a Java Image which is then displayed on the web page. The result
is the display of sheet music with a professional look although the input is plain text (MusicML).
See the MusicML DTD.
- Open Financial Exchange (OFX) [Vocabulary]
- "Open Financial Exchange is a unified specification for the electronic exchange of financial
data between financial institutions, business and consumers via the Internet. Created by
CheckFree, Intuit and Microsoft in early 1997, Open Financial Exchange supports a wide
range of financial activities including consumer and small business banking; consumer
and small business bill payment; bill presentment and investments, including stocks,
bonds and mutual funds. Other financial services, including financial planning and
insurance, will be added in the future and will be incorporated into the specification."
See also Microsoft in the Financial Services Industry.
- Open Trading Protocol (OTP) [Vocabulary]
- "OTP is a protocol for the development of software products that will permit
product interoperability for the electronic purchase that is independent of the chosen
payment mechanism -- OTP encapsulates the payment with the offers/invoice/receipts
for payment and delivery."
- Question and Answer Markup Language (QAML) [Vocabulary]
- QAML is a simple markup language for FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions).
It is suitable for FAQs and has also been used for inhouse information systems.
QAML 1.0 was an SGML DTD from faqs.org.
QAML 2 is an XML version,
with support for internationalization, accessability, PDAs or WebPhones, and
stylesheets. From Academia Sinica, Taipei.
See also the QAML English Home Page
and the "Chinese XML Now" English Home Page
which includes an example with an associated CSS (stylesheet).
- Structured Graph Format (SGF) [Vocabulary]
- SGF is an XML format, which has been designed for describing the
structure of Web sites. Structured Graphs are a mathematical formalism
designed to support scalable browsing and editing of large graphs.
They were initally developed in the context of project management and
software engineering.
- TEI Lite and Loose [Vocabulary]
- TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) is the leading academic
vocabulary for literature and is also used for professional reference publishing.
It covers many areas: books, plays, dictionaries, poetry. TEI defined a very large
SGML vocabulary; TEI Lite was a simpler one for many basic uses; TEI Lite and Loose
is an XML version. From Academia Sinica, Taipei.
- Tutorial Markup Language (TML) [Vocabulary]
- "Tutorial Markup Language (TML) is an interchange format
designed to separate the semantic content of a question from its
screen layout or formatting. The language is designed to support
several different types of question within the same content model.
It is essentially a super-set of HTML, with new elements added to
describe question information."
- UML eXchange Format (UXF) [Vocabulary]
- UXF is a vocabulary proposed to express, publish, access and exchange UML (Unified Modeling Language)
models. It serves as a communication vehicle for developers, and as a well-structured data format for
development tools.
- Voice Markup Language (VoxML) [Vocabulary]
- From Motorola's web site:
" The VoxML markup language for voice applications allows developers to
simply and easily add speech interfaces to their Web applications or
content. The VoxML language uses Internet technologies and standards -
so developing VoxML applications is similar to developing Web
applications.
VoxML applications are written in the form of dialogues - allowing
users to interact naturally with the application. These dialogues are
interpreted by voice browsers - just as HTML pages are interpreted by
web browsers. Now, people can connect with Internet information from
any telephone or voice-enabled device.
VoxML applications are hosted on standard Web servers. So, adding
voice interfaces to existing Web sites is simple and straightforward.
VoxML technology gives Web Application Providers opportunities to
reach new distribution channels and potential new revenue streams by
providing access to the Web when people are away from their desktop."
- Web Distributed Data Exchange (WDDX) [Vocabulary]
- WDDX is technology that Allaire (maker of HomeSite and ColdFusion) developed in 1998 and
released openly to the public. WDDX provides a language and platform neutral mechanism for
exchanging richly structured data. The tools that Allaire and third parties have developed
allow the exchange of data between CFML, ASP, COM/DCOM, Java, Perl, Python, PHP,
JavaScript, etc.
See also the article Live Data from WDDX by Lisa Rein.
- Weather Observation Markup Format (OMF) [Vocabulary]
- The Weather Report Markup application uses XML for annotating
weather observation reports, forecasts and advisories as issued by
Weather Meteorological Organization (WMO), the National Weather Center
and Air Force Global Weather Center.
- XBEL: XML Bookmark Exchange Language: [Vocabulary]
-
XBEL from the Python XML SIG
"represents a Web browser's collection of bookmarks. Converters
are available to convert several browser-specific formats (Netscape,
MS Internet Explorer, Opera, Lynx) to XBEL and back."
- XGMML: eXtensible Graph Markup and Modeling Language [Vocabulary]
- XGMML is a graph description language that
"uses tags to describe nodes and edges of a graph. The purpose of
XGMML is to make possible the exchange of graphs between differents authoring and browsing tools for
graphs. The conversion of graphs written in GML to XGMML is trivial. Using XSL with XGMML allows the
translation of graphs to different formats. XGMML was created to be used for the WWWPAL System that
visualizes web sites as a graph. Web Robots can navigate through a web site and save the graph information
as an XGMML file. XGMML, as any other XML application, can be mixed with other markup languages to
describe additional graph, node and/or edge information."
- XML Metadata Interchange Format (XMI from IBM) [Vocabulary]
- "IBM, Unisys, and other industry leaders are
proposing a new open industry standard that would combine the benefits
of the web-based XML standard for defining, validating, and sharing
document formats on the web with the benefits of the object-oriented
Unified Markup Language (UML), a specification of the
Object Management Group (OMG)
that provides application developers a common
language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting
distributed objects and business models. The XML Metadata Interchange
Format (XMI) specifies an open information interchange model that is
intended to give developers working with object technology the ability
to exchange programming data over the Internet in a standardized way,
thus bringing consistency and compatibility to applications created in
collaborative environments....The proposed standard will allow developers to leverage
the web to exchange data between tools, applications, and repositories
to create secure, distributed applications built in a team development
environment."
- XML for Electronic Data Interchange (XML/EDI) [Vocabulary]
- "XML/EDI provides a standard framework/format to describe different
types of data -- for example, an invoice, healthcare claim, project
status -- so that the information be it in a transaction, catalog or a
document in a workflow can be searched, decoded, manipulated, and
displayed consistently and correctly by implementing EDI dictionaries."
- XSchema Spec, Version 1.0 [Vocabulary]
- XSchema from Simon St.Laurent and the xml-dev mailing list is intended
to permit more complete language descriptions than DTDs permit. It
is related to other efforts:
Document Content Description for XML (DCD),
Schema for Object-Oriented XML (SOX), and XML-Data.
Several other web sites cover XML-related specifications that overlap those
presented on this page.
Submit additions or corrections to Ken Sall
for consideration.
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