Semantic extensions of XML for advanced applications

Abstract

XML is a de facto standard for structuring documents and their exchange in electronic forms. However it has many restrictions to represent various information from viewpoints of data-centered applications. Set and tuple constructors are useful for defining data structure, and identities and user views are indispensable for sharing common data, while XML, even with XML Schema, does not support such features. In this paper, we propose an approach to semantic extensions of XML by introducing some special attributes, by which conventional data constructors can be utilized and semantic elements for user views can be defined. Along this approach, we have been developing XML-based systems for heterogeneous document management, digital theme parks, and interactive multimedia presentation, where there are many enhancement requests to XML. We discuss the effectiveness of extensions by taking examples in our applications.