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70<br />
An Inside Look at XLink<br />
<strong>XML</strong> Demystifi ed<br />
XLink is <strong>XML</strong>’s way of linking a resource to a specific behavior. This might sound<br />
new to you, but it shouldn’t if you’re familiar with the way HTML links resources.<br />
XLink is basically a generalization of the HTML link.<br />
Before seeing how XLink works, let’s take a step back and review how HTML<br />
links are used; this will give you a foundation for understanding how to use XLink.<br />
An HTML link is an attribute within an anchor tag, such as the href attribute, that’s<br />
used to define a hyperlink, as we show here. The anchor tag can link to a resource<br />
such as this HTML page or to a location within the same page, which is called a<br />
relative link.<br />
<br />
Another common link is used in the img tag to link the src attribute to an image<br />
file, as we show here. The image file is an external resource to the web page and<br />
gets pulled into the current document. The browser loads the HTML page, parses it,<br />
and finds the image tag, then makes the request to the server for this resource.<br />
<br />
Tags that are associated with links exhibit a certain behavior based on a given<br />
link’s attribute. For example, the href attribute enables the anchor tag to jump to<br />
another page or to a different location on the same page. If the target attribute is<br />
used within the anchor tag, then the other page is displayed in a new browser<br />
window, as we show here.<br />
click here<br />
HTML tags that use links are specific. That is, you must define the link each and<br />
every time that you link an HTML tag. So, if all your images are located in the<br />
images directory on your server, you’ll need to reference the images directory each<br />
time that you link to an image; for example:<br />
<br />
In contrast, XLink enables you to generalize. For example, you can define a base<br />
as the images directory. The base is then referenced each time you link to an image.<br />
You don’t need to repeat the directory name in the link.<br />
HTML links are limited to a one-to-one relationship between the source and<br />
destination. That is, the src attribute can reference one image file. XLink enables<br />
you to specify multiple sources with multiple destinations.
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