XML Cheat Sheet – Quick Reference Guide
Estimated study time: 10 minutes.
A quick reference for the XML concepts covered in this course — handy for revision before an interview or project.
Basic Syntax
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
<child attribute="value">Text</child>
</root>Rules to Remember
- Every opening tag needs a matching closing tag
- Tags are case-sensitive
- Documents must have exactly one root element
- Attribute values must always be quoted
DTD vs XSD
<!-- DTD -->
<!ELEMENT student (name, course)>
<!-- XSD -->
<xs:element name="student">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:element name="name" type="xs:string"/>
<xs:element name="course" type="xs:string"/>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>XPath Quick Syntax
/root/child select child under root
//child select child anywhere in the document
//child[@id='1'] select child with a specific attribute
child/text() select the text contentXSLT Skeleton
<xsl:template match="/">
<html>
<body>
<xsl:value-of select="root/child"/>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>Parsing Approaches
- DOM — loads the whole document into memory as a tree
- SAX — reads the document event-by-event, low memory use
- StAX — pull-based, gives the client control over reading
💡 Tip: Bookmark this page — it's designed to be a fast lookup, not a full explanation. Head back to the earlier topics whenever you need the "why" behind any of these.