XML Infoset Recommendation

World Wide Web Consortium Issues XML Information Set as a W3C Recommendation

XML Infoset Delivers Shared Terms to XML Documents

24 October 2001

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today announced the release of XML Information Set (XML Infoset) as a W3C Recommendation. XML Infoset provides a set of definitions for use in other specifications that need to refer to the information in an XML document. A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C Membership, who are in favor of supporting its adoption by academic, industry, and research communities.

XML Documents Share Common Information Features

As the Extensible Markup Language (XML) is adopted by more people and organizations interested in both providing and processing information, the ability to identify and describe information inside an XML document has evolved into a requirement. XML documents are exchanged, parsed, processed and transformed; the information items inside these documents need to be available to both people and applications.

W3C's XML Core Working Group has worked on a consistent set of definitions for use in other specifications that need to refer to the information in a well-formed XML document, and has produced the XML Infoset Recommendation.

XML Infoset Describes Information Features in XML Documents

Every well-formed XML document which conforms to XML Namespaces has an information set. An XML document's information set consists of a number of information items. These items are abstract descriptions of some part of an XML document, such as elements and attributes. Each information item then has a set of associated named properties.

XML Infosets may be created either by parsing an XML document, or by other methods including the use of an API such as the Document Object Model (DOM).

XML Infoset Adds Coherence to XML Family of Specifications

Over the past year, the W3C XML Activity has produced a number of XML Recommendations which add to the robustness and the utility of XML, including XML Schema, XML Base, XML Linking, and other established W3C XML recommendations such as XSLT.

XML developers needed a set of concepts and definitions that would tie these specifications together more closely; the XML Information Set was produced to fulfill that role. XML specifications can now be described in terms of the way they operate on XML Infosets. XML Infosets ensure that existing and upcoming architectural XML recommendations will be defined, described, and possibly implemented in more interoperable ways, thereby lending interoperable and extensible features to XML and the growing world of applications which make use of XML documents and data.

About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS) in the USA, the National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World Wide Web for developers and users, and various prototype and sample applications to demonstrate use of new technology. To date, over 510 organizations are Members of the Consortium. For more information see http://www.w3.org/.

Contacts

Contact America -- Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613 Contact Europe -- Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94 Contact Asia -- Saeko Takeuchi <saeko@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170

Announcement also available in French and Japanese. See:
http://www.w3.org/2001/10/infoset-pressrelease.html.fr
http://www.w3.org/2001/10/infoset-pressrelease.html.ja

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See the news item.

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