XML document authoring with emacs |  |
XML document authoring with emacs | |
Anyone who works with XML files has to deal with validation. How do we make sure that the file is well-formed, that is, legal under the rules of XML?
More importantly, how do we insure that the file is valid, that is, conforming to the schema that describes what elements and attributes are allowed for the given document type?
One solution is to use the emacs
text editor, with the optional nxml-mode package, for document
creation and maintenance.
To use nxml-mode, you'll need to be familiar with these tools:
The basics of XML. See the Tech Computer Center's XML help page.
The emacs text editor. See The emacs text editor .
If you're using an existing document type like DocBook, XSLT, RDF, or XHTML, that's all you'll need.
However, if you're going to invent your own XML document types, instead of using a DTD (Document Type Definition) or the XML Schema language, we recommend that you take a look at the Relax NG Schema language, especially when expressed in the delightfully concise compact syntax (RNC). For a comparison of several current schema languages, and why we prefer Relax NG at this time, see Relax NG compact syntax.
These notes describe the 20060901 version of nxml-mode. This
package works best with emacs
version 21.3 or later. It will not work with version 20
or with xemacs.