Level: Intermediate

Xiao Feng Zhao (zhaoxfbj@cn.ibm.com), Staff Software Engineer, IBM
Qiang Wang (wangq@cn.ibm.com), Staff Software Engineer, IBM
Susan Malaika (malaika@us.ibm.com), Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM
Keith Wells (wellsk@us.ibm.com), Senior Software Engineer, IBM

19 Dec 2008

The XML Forms Generator (XFG) provides a jump-start for form development. It can quickly and automatically produce valid and functional forms containing XForms markup embedded within an XHTML document. The input to form generation can be an XML data instance with or without a backing XML Schema, or a WSDL document. Data Web Services, which is based on SQL scripts and Store Procedures, is a database-related application of traditional Web Services. IBM® Data Studio is a client tool for generating Data Web Services visually with the help of a direct connection to the database. The integration between XFG and Data Studio can enable you to generate XForms/XHTMLs from Data Web Services generated by Data Studio. This integration provides advantages such as joining the development of UI pages and Data access seamlessly, reducing the workload of UI development from Data Web Services, and visualizing the pureXML™ UI development with full-support of validation.

XForms and XML Forms Generator

Frequently used acronyms HTML: Hypertext Markup Language HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol REST: REpresentational State Transfer SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol UI: User Interface W3C: World Wide Web Consortium WSDL: Web Services Description Language XHTML: Extensible Hypertext Markup Language XML: Extensible Markup Language

The W3C has developed the XForms standard for the presentation and collection of form data. As stated in the W3C Recommendation (see Resources), XForms is intended to be "the next generation of forms for the Web." As the recommendation declares, "By splitting traditional XHTML forms into three parts—XForms model, instance data, and user interface—it separates presentation from content, allows reuse, gives strong typing—reducing the number of round-trips to the server, as well as offering device independence and a reduced need for scripting." XForms documents feature a data model which contains one or more XML instance documents. The form manipulates such an instance document and provides for the submission of that XML to a back-end system.

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