Attributes

A qualifier on an XML tag that provides additional information.

Controlled Value List (CVL)

A finite list of terms, each one having a prescribed meaning, designed for use in classifying, indexing and searching documents. The term "Value" in CVL is primarily used in connection with XML programming, where is interchangeable with "Code". For records-management environments, the term "Vocabulary" is typically used.

Document Type Definition (DTD)

A document that specifies the valid tags and the valid structure of a document class.

ebXML Registry

Ebusiness XML is an information system that stores XML artefacts (e.g. schemas, data elements etc) and non-XML artefacts (e.g. other e-Business objects) as well as details (metadata) about the objects http://www.ebxml.org/ebusinessxmlregistry.pdf

Element

A unit of XML data, delimited by tags. An XML element can enclose other elements.

Metalogue

New Zealand Government online metadata repository.

Namespace

A standard that lets you specify a unique label to the set of element names defined by a DTD. A document using that DTD can be included in any other document without having a conflict between element names. The elements defined in your DTD are then uniquely identified so that, for example, the parser can tell when an element called <name> should be interpreted according to your DTD, rather than using the definition for an element called "name" in a different DTD.

New Zealand Government Locator Service (NZGLS)

A method of classifying and categorising New Zealand Government agency information and services (both online and offline), implemented through a metadata standard that includes the government-wide thesauri of New Zealand Government terms, consisting of SONZ and FONZ. NZGLS was modelled on the Australian equivalent, AGLS, which is itself an extension of the Dublin Core metadata standard.

Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)

See http://www.oasis-open.org/home/index.php.

Parser

A module that reads in XML data from an input source and breaks it up into chunks so that your program knows when it is working with a tag, an attribute, or element data. (See the example under "Parse" above.)

A non-validating parser ensures that the XML data is well formed, but does not verify that it is valid.

A validating parser ensures that that XML data is well formed and valid (ie, conforms to a schema)

Root element

The outermost element in an XML document. The element that contains all other elements

Schema

A database-inspired method for specifying constraints on XML documents using an XML-based language. Schemas address deficiencies in DTDs, such as the inability to put constraints on the kinds of data that can occur in a particular field (for example, all numeric). Since schemas are founded on XML, they are hierarchical; so it is easier to create an unambiguous specification, and possibly to determine the scope over which a comment is meant to apply.

Tag

A piece of text that describes a unit of data, or element, in XML. The tag is distinguishable as mark-up, as opposed to data, because it is surrounded by angle brackets (< and >).

Unparsed

Data that is in a "block" as shown in the parse example and not split by tags or elements

Valid

A valid XML document, in addition to being well formed, conforms to all the constraints imposed by a DTD. In other words, it does not contain any tags that are not permitted by the DTD, and the order of the tags conforms to the DTD's specifications.

Well-formed

A well-formed XML document is syntactically correct. It does not have any angle brackets that are not part of tags. In addition, all tags have an ending tag or are themselves self-ending. In addition, in a well-formed document, all tags are fully nested. Knowing that a document is well formed makes it possible to process it. A well-formed document may not be valid however. To determine that, you need a validating parser and a DTD.

XML document

A document containing data, described with XML elements (tags). An XML document might refer to one or several XML schemas.

XML schema

Document that defines a data structure. A schema guarantees that the XML elements linked to it follow the defined structure.

XML Namespace

When an XML document refers to several schemas, namespaces are used to link each XML element with a schema.

AGIFT

Australian Governments' Interactive Functions Thesaurus

AGLS

Australian Government Locator Service

ANZLIC

Australia and NZ Land Information Council

CIQ

Customer Information Quality

CVL

Controlled Value/vocabulary/code List

DTD

Document Type Definition

e-GIF

E-government Interoperability Framework

FONZ

Functions of New Zealand

IT

Information Technology

LINZ

Land and Information New Zealand

NAA

National Archives of Australia

NZGLS

New Zealand Government Locator Service

OASIS

Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards

OASIS xNAL

eXtensible Name and Address Language developed by OASIS CIQ TC

SONZ

Subjects of New Zealand

TAGS

Thesaurus of Australian Government Subjects

TC

OASIS Technical Committee

URI

Uniform Resource Identifier

xCIL

eXtensible Customer Information Language

XML

eXtensible Markup Language

XNAL

eXtensible Name and Address Language

XSL

eXtensible Style Language