/ Home / Teaching / Telecommunications engineering degree / Communication Software Laboratory

Communication Software Laboratory

• Year: 5
• Credits: 3 (theory part 1 + practical assignments 2)
• Term: 2
• Hours/Week: 2
• Lecturers: Simon Pickin (lectures) Miguel Ángel Correyero (labs)
• Spanish course lecturers: Vicente Luque Centeno, course coordinator (lectures) Javier Fernández Galván (labs)

Objectives

To learn XML as a markup meta-lenguage. To understand how to define new languages by specialising XML for a particular application and how to process XML documents either to visualise them (presentation) or in the development of other types of applications (programming).

Syllabus and Course Plan

Week	Date	Room	Lecturer	Content (approx.)
01	Feb. 4th	4.2.E02	SP	Course presentation     Review of HTML, CSS, Web accessibility     Web accessibility presentation
02	Feb. 11th	4.2.E02	SP	Introduction to XML and DTDs
03	Feb. 18th	4.S.D03	MAC	Lab: DTDs and XML Presentation (CSS and XSL)
04	Feb. 25th	4.2.E02	SP	XML Schemas
05	Mar. 4th	4.S.D03	MAC	Lab: accessible XHTML
08	Mar. 11th	4.2E.02	SP	XPath and XSL
07	Mar. 18th	4.2E.02	SP	XPath and XSL
09	Mar. 25th	4.S.D03	MAC	Lab: XSLT
11	Apr. 1st			Public holiday: Maundy Thursday (also April fools' day)
10	Apr. 8th	4.S.D03	MAC	Lab: XSLT
12	Apr. 15th	4.S.D03	MAC	Lab: SAX, DOM, JDOM
13	Apr. 22nd	4.S.D03	MAC	Lab: SAX, DOM, JDOM
14	Apr. 29th	4.2.E02	SP	XML-RPC and Web Services
15	Mar. 6th	4.S.D03	MAC	Lab: Web services
16	Mar. 13th	4.S.D03	MAC	Lab: Web services
	Jun. 10th	2.3.C01		June Exam (in the morning)
	Sep. 16th	?		September Exam (in the afternoon)

ASSIGNMENTS ASSESSED FOR THE FINAL MARK

• Accessible XHTML
• XSLT
• SAX, DOM, JDOM
• Web Services

Timetable

Timetable

Group	Day	Time
95-5 (afternoon)	Thursday	19:00-21:00

Tutorial Times

See http://www.it.uc3m.es/spickin/

Assessment Criteria

• 40% of the marks for the theory exam
• 60% of the marks for the obligatory practical assignments carried out during the term
• A pass mark must be obtained in each of these two parts considered separately

Suggested previous knowledge

• HTML
• CSS
• Java
• Linux

Practical assignments

• Opening an account on the Ingeniería Telemática department´s system

Applications

• Electronic Publication
• Electronic Commerce
• Communication between applications (from file-based communication between programs to communication between agents over a network)
• Distance Learning
• ...
• Any structured markup of data

End-of-degree projects (proyectos fin de carrera)

• http://www.it.uc3m.es/vlc/pfcs.html

Bibliography

General Web Publishing

• W3C quick guidelines ("cheatsheet")

HTML

• W3C's HTML&CSS pages
• w3schools' HTML tutorial
• Dave Ragget's HTML tutorial at W3C:
  • 1. "Basic HTML"
  • 2. "More advanced features"
• W3C's index of HTML 4 elements
• W3C's complete list of HTML 4 character entity references
• The Open Directory Project HTML pages
• The HTML 4 standard
• The HTML 5 standard (working draft)
• W3C's HTML/XHTML validator

CSS

• W3C's CSS pages
• w3schools' CSS tutorial
• Dave Ragget's HTML tutorial at W3C:
  • 3. "Adding a touch of style"
• W3C's Introduction to CSS2.1
• W3C's corrections/extensions to above tutorial
• Zvon.org's CSS1 reference
• Zvon.org's CSS2 reference
• Devguru's CSS2 reference
• The Open Directory Project CSS pages
• The CSS Level 1 standard
• The CSS Level 2 standard (2.1)
• The CSS Level 3 drafts
• W3C's CSS validator

XML

• W3C's XML pages
• w3schools' XML tutorial
• w3schools' DTD tutorial
• The Text Encoding Initiative Consortium's "Gentle introduction to XML"
• Elliotte Rusty Harold's XML Seminars, Tutorials and Presentations
• Wikibooks' XML: Managing Data Exchange
• Elliotte Rusty Harold's XML in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition 2002
• Elliotte Rusty Harold's XML in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition 2004
• Peter Flynn's XML FAQ
• Ken Sall's XML acronyms page
• Mulburry Technologies' XML quick reference
• Robin Cover's Cover Pages hosted by OASIS
• Elliote Rusty Harold's Cafe con Leche XML News and Resources
• The XML Journal
• The List of XML-related Apache projects
• The Gnome project's XML C library Libxml2
• XML.org site hosted by OASIS
• O'Reilly's XML.com site
• IBM developerWorks XML pages
• Uche Ogbuji's survey of XML standards at IBM developerWorks
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3
  • Part 4
• The Open Directory Project XML pages
• The XML standard v1.0 (fifth edition)
• Tim Bray's annotated XML standard
• Scholarly Technology Group's XML validator

XML Schema

• W3C's XML Schema pages
• W3C's XML Schema standara, part 0: Primer, second edition 2004 - basically, a tutorial
• The XML Schemas standard, part 1: Structures, second edition 2004
• The XML Schemas standard, part 2: Data Types, second edition 2004
• w3school's XML Schema tutorial
• Zvon's XML Schema tutorial
• xml.com article entitled 'Understanding W3C Schema Complex Types'
• Eric van der Vlist's "XML Schema" 1st edition 2002
• Anders Møller and Michael I. Schwartzbach's "An Introduction to XML and Web Technologies", 2006, Chapter 4: Schema languages
• Danny Vint's XML Schema - Structures quick reference
• Danny Vint's XML Schema - Data Types quick reference

XHTML

• W3C's XHTML FAQ
• w3schools' XHTML tutorial
• w3schools' XHTML reference
• Devguru's XHTML reference
• XHTML.com's XHTML reference
• Zvon's XHTML reference
• Zvon's XHTML Basic reference
• The Open Directory Project XHTML pages
• The Xhtmlpedia: browsable version of XHTML DTDs
• The XHTML 1.0 (Strict, Transitional and Frameset) standard
• The XHTML 1.1 standard
• The XHTML 1.1 Basic standard
• W3C's HTML/XHTML validator

Web accessibility

• W3C's Web accessibility pages
• W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) pages
• W3C's WAI resources
• W3C's WAI: getting started
• W3C's WAI: quick tips
• W3C's Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) overview
• W3C's WCAG 1.0 curriculum
  • Introduction
  • Guidelines
  • Checkpoints
  • Examples
• W3C's How to meet WCAG 2.0 (quick reference)
• W3C's How WCAG 2.0 Differs from WCAG 1.0
• W3C's WCAG 2.0 FAQ
• W3C's Comparison of WCAG 1.0 checkpoints to WCAG 2.0
• Joe Clark's critique of WCAG2
• WCAG proposals from WCAG Samurai
• Roger Hudson's Accessible forms using WCAG 2.0
• Roger Hudson's Migrating from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0
• Vicente Luque's presentation entitled "WAI - Accessibility Techniques for the Web"
• W3C's WCAG 1.0 standard
• W3C's Techniques for WCAG 1.0
• W3C's WCAG 2.0 standard
• W3C's Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• W3C's Understanding WCAG 2.0
• Accessibility validators:
  • The TAW Web accessibility testing tool
  • The Hera Web accessibility testing tool
  • HiSoftware Cynthia Says portal
  • The University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Center's ATRC Accessibility Checker
  • The University of Illinois' Functional Accessibility Evaluator
  • The WEb Accessibility Evaluator (WAEX) tool

XPath

• w3school's XPath tutorial
• Zvon's XPath tutorial
• Anders Møller & Michael I. Schwartzbach's Introductory XPath slides (PDF)
• Books / book chapters:
  • 'XML in a Nutshell', 3rd edition 2004 Chapter 9: XPath
  • Michael Kay's XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference, 3rd edition 2004, Chapter 8: Sequence Expressions
  • Michael Kay's XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference, 3rd edition 2004, courtesy of Google books
  • Sun's The J2EE Tutorial, Second Edition 2004, Chapter 7. Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations, in particular How XPath works
• Saxon's XPath 2.0 Expression Syntax information
• Mulburry Technologies' XSLT1.0 and XPath1.0 quick reference
• Mulburry Technologies' Xpath2.0 quick reference
• Mulburry Technologies' Regular Expressions in XSLT 2.0, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Quick Reference
• Mulburry Technologies' XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators Quick Reference
• w3schools' XPath, XQuery, and XSLT Functions Reference
• The XPath 1.0 standard
• The XPath 2.0 standard
• The XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM) standard
• The XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators
• The XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics

XSL

• W3C's new Standards/XML Technology/Transformation pages
• W3C's old XSL pages
• w3school's XSLT tutorial
• Zvon's XSLT tutorial
• Norman Walsh's Introduction to XSLT 2.0 (for XSLT 1.0 users) slides
• Anders Møller & Michael I. Schwartzbach's Introductory XSLT slides (PDF)
• Books / book chapters:
  • Sal Mangano's XSLT Cookbook, 2nd Edition, 2005
  • Doug Tidwell's XSLT, Mastering XML Transformations, 2nd edition, 2008, courtesy of Safari books
  • Elliotte Rusty Harold's 'XML Bible', 3rd edition 2004 Chapter 15: XSLT and Chapter 16: XSL-FO
  • Michael Kay's 'XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference', 4th Edition 2008 Chapter 1: XSLT in Context
  • Sun's The J2EE Tutorial, Second Edition 2004, Chapter 7. Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations courtesy of Safari books
  • Michael Kay's 'XSLT 2.0 Programmer's Reference', 3rd Edition 2004, courtesy of Google books
  • Doug Tidwell's XSLT. Mastering XML Transformations, 2nd edition 2008, courtesy of Google books
  • Dmitry Kirsanov's 'XSLT 2.0 Web Development' 2004, courtesy of Safari books
  • Michael Fitzgerald's 'Learning XSLT' 2003, courtesy of Safari books
  • Michiel van Otegem's 'Sams Teach Yourself XSLT in 21 Days' 2002, courtesy of Safari books
  • Jeni Tennison's 'Beginning XSLT 2.0. From Novice to Professional', 2008, courtesy of Google books
• Kevin Williams' XML for Data: XSL style sheets: push or pull? at IBM developerWorks (2002)
• Bob DuCharme's writings on XSLT 2.0 at xml.com
• Unidex's Universal Turing Machine in XSLT
• W3C's What is XSL?
• W3C's Web Style Sheets Home Page
• W3C's "CSS and XSL: which should I use?"
• deepX's animation showing XSLT processing
• XMLPitstop.com's XSLT stylesheet library
• Zvon's XSLT reference
• Devguru's XSLT reference
• Zvon's XSL-FO reference
• Mulburry Technologies' XSLT1.0 and XPath1.0 quick reference
• Mulburry Technologies' XSLT2.0 quick reference
• Mulburry Technologies' Regular Expressions in XSLT 2.0, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Quick Reference
• NIST XSL-FO test suite
• The Open Directory Project XSL pages
• XSLT FAQ maintained by Dave Pawson
• XSL-FO FAQ maintained by Dave Pawson
• The XSLT 1.0 standard
• The XSL 1.1 standard (largely XSL-FO)
• The XSLT 2.0 standard
• The XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization standard

XML Processing (SAX, DOM,...)

• The SAX project
• The Core SAX API
• W3C's DOM home page
• W3C's DOM FAQ
• w3school's XML DOM tutorial
  • XML DOM Node Types
• Elliotte Rusty Harold's 'Processing XML with Java' slides (published in 2000)
• Elliotte Rusty Harold's 'Processing XML with Java' book (published in 2001/2002; chapters 6, 9, 10, 11, 14 & 15 of particular interest here)
• Ken Sall's 'XML Family of Specifications: A Practical Guide', 1st edition, 2002 Chapter 3: XML syntax and parsing
• David Brownell's SAX2, 1st edition, 2002
• Elliotte Rusty Harold's An introduction to StaX
• Eran Chinthaka's Introduction to StaX
• IBM developerWorks' 'XML Programming in Java' tutorial
• IBM developerWorks' Using pull-based DOMs (half-way between SAX and DOM)
• IBM developerWorks' Use XML streaming parsers (using StaX)
• IBM developerWorks' Parsing XML documents partially with StAX
• Zvon's DOM 1 reference
• Zvon's DOM 2 reference
• Sun's Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) pages
• Sun's Java API for XML Binding (JAXB) pages
• Robin Cover's DOM pages
• The Open Directory Project DOM pages
• The JDOM project
• The JDOM 1.1.1 API
• Elliotte Rusty Harold's JDOM slides
• The dom4j project
• The XOM project
• TrAX: Transformation API for XML: XSLT y Java
• Jaxen: XPath y Java
• The StaX reference implementation
• The DOM standard
  • Introduction from DOM Level 3 standard
• For more information, see some of the XML pages such as the xml.org, xml.com,... in the XML section above.

Web Services

• W3C's SOAP 1.2 Primer
• W3C's WSDL 2.0 Primer
• Sun's Java Web Services tutorial
• w3school's Web services tutorial
• w3school's SOAP tutorial
• w3school's WSDL tutorial
• W3C's Web services pages
• W3C's Web Services Glossary
• Sun's Java Web services pages
• Sun's Java API for XML Web Services (included in JSE6)
• IBM Developer Works articles on understanding web services:
  • Introduction
  • SOAP
  • WSDL
  • UDDI
  • WS-Security
  • WS-Policy
  • WS-Interoperability
  • WS-BPEL
• Samples of Paul Prescod's writing about SOAP problems:
  • Roots of the REST/SOAP debate
  • Headers and envelopes
  • The Soap/REST controversy (presentation)
• Roy Fielding's views on SOAP
• Roger Costello's Building Web Services the REST Way
• Roger Costello and Timothy Kehoe's REST (Representational State Transfer) (presentation)
• Presentation of SOAP from Elliotte Rusty Harold's 'Processing XML with Java' book
• Presentation of XML-RPC from Elliotte Rusty Harold's 'Processing XML with Java' book
• 'Java Web Services Architecture' book, 2003 Chapter 2: Service Oriented Architecture
• 'Java Web Services Architecture' book, 2003 Chapter 10: JAX-RPC
• XML-RPC home page
• Apache XML-RPC
• Zvon's SOAP 1.1 reference
• Zvon's WSDL 1.1 reference
• Zvon's UDDI v2 reference
• SOASpecs.com's Web services specifications
• Wikipedia's Lisf of web service specifications
• W3C's SOAP 1.2 Messaging Framework
• W3C's SOAP 1.2 Adjuncts
• W3C's WSDL 2.0 Core Language
• W3C's WSDL 2.0 Adjuncts
• W3C's Web Services Addressing 1.0 - Core
• OASIS' UDDI, version 3
• Other Oasis Standards

Miscellaneous

• free Web designs
• more free Web designs
• yet more free Web designs
• The OpenOffice.org XML File Format, adopted as the basis of the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications
• ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language) site hosted by OASIS