C++ XML, Web & Component Programming

Don't let the title mislead you: even if you are not specifically interested in the Internet, this course shows some extremely important techniques

	How to easily save your complex data structures between sessions (serialization to/from XML -- see XML)
	How to write graphical user interfaces using CGI scripting techniques
	How to write libraries that eliminate or minimize the need for recompilations

This module nicely complements Advanced C++ Class Provider where we discuss and implement additional techniques.

	Programmers who want to write portable GUI programs
	Unix or Win32 programmers that want to write shared libraries or DLLs
	Web programmers who want to write CGI style programs for the Internet
	Programmers who want to use C++ to read/write XML

	See Advanced C++ Modules.
	C++ Class Provider Programming for Beginning Programmers.
	Class User Programming with the C++ Standard Library for Experienced Programmers or
	C++ Class User Programming for Beginning Programmers

Portable C++ GUI Programming using CGI & HTML

Basic Hyper-text Mark-up Language (HTML) tags

Basic Forms

CGI (Common Gateway Interface)

Writing portable GUI applications with C++

Serialization C++ Data Structures and the Extended Markup Language XML

Terms

An introduction to XML

	XML style sheets (XSL)
	Document type definitions (DTD)
	XLinks and XPointers
	XML Schema
	Vector Markup Language

Serialization

Tags: how do we know what we wrote?

	The easy approach: hard coding the data types
	Reading any XML file

Basic types

User defines structs

Inheritance

Standard containers

Programming Components by Defining Interfaces

When the User-Provider model is not enough: eliminating recompiles with public interfaces

The version control problem on the web

The solution

	Private v. frozen public interfaces
	Uniquely identifying interfaces and implementations

Writing portable code

	Unix shared libraries v. Microsoft dynamic link libraries
	Mimicking Microsoft COM and staying portable