Cart
|
Home > Online Product Documentation > Table of Contents > Defining General Entities and Parameter Entities in DTDs Defining General Entities and Parameter Entities in DTDsIn DTDs, an entity allows you to define a symbol for a value. In the Tree view, you can define general entities and parameter entities. The value of a general entity can be just about anything. It can be General entities are useful for things that change often, such as the name of a product in development. An entity allows you to change the value in one place and have the corrected value appear everywhere it is needed. See also Description of Entity and Parameter Entity Properties in DTDs. When you define a general entity, you specify a symbol that you can use in instance documents. When the XML parser finds a reference to a general entity, it replaces the symbol with the value you specified when you defined the general entity. When you define a parameter entity, you specify a symbol that you can use elsewhere in the DTD. Again, when the XML parser finds a reference to a parameter entity, it replaces the reference with the value you specified when you defined the parameter entity. In a DTD, the definition of an entity must appear before a reference to that entity. Therefore, it is good practice to put all entity declarations at the beginning of a DTD. This section discusses the following topics: |
Database-to-XML Mapping
Stylus Studio features several database-to-XML mapping tools that allow you to easily query a relational database using SQL/XML or SQL and render the results as XML. Stylus Studio also supports the world's first and only visual SQL/XML Editor!
Introduction to the XQuery Mapper
This free online video demonstration covers Stylus Studio's synchronized XQuery editing and mapping tool which allows you to create any XQuery expression, either manually using Stylus Studio's XQuery editor.
XML Operations
Using XML Pipeline it's easy to visually specify a series of XML operations to apply on your XML data, including parsing, validating, converting and transforming, according to the needs of your business application.
Converting Custom EDI Message Types to XML
Vital and valuable legacy data locked in proprietary EDI files? See how to use DataDirect XML Converters™ custom EDI message type tools to convert nonconformant EDI to XML.
