XML Hacks

Use XForms in Your XML Documents

You may be accustomed to creating forms in HTML. XForms, an XML vocabulary, allows you to take a step up from HTML or XHTML forms.

A key advantage of most XML vocabularies is that they’re more structured than, say, a Microsoft Word document. Most XML is pretty predictable, at least as far as structure goes. Likewise, forms are more structured than free-flowing documents. Taken in combination, XML and forms seem to have been made for each other. Instead of creating documents from scratch, a more fill-in-the-blanks approach becomes possible. As a bonus, this works both for creating a new XML document and for editing existing XML.

XForms (http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/), which became a W3C recommendation in October 2003, makes it possible to define XML form templates that can be used to create or edit other XML snippets. While a few proprietary solutions are around for creating forms data, XForms is generally a better choice because it is free to implement or use and it is open standards-based. Open standards have a proven track record of being more flexible, more compatible, and less expensive than proprietary alternatives.

XForms is also generally considered a better choice than classic HTML or XHTML forms, which tend to rely heavily on JavaScript and don’t work with XML in any case. Another benefit of XForms is that it provides declarative actions for most, if not all, of the cases where JavaScript is required.

Anatomy of an XForms Document

XForms ...