Structured Strategy: How to Supercharge Your Content Analysis with XML and XPath
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The best content strategists are limited by how much content they can analyze. There comes a point where a content set becomes too large to analyze using usual methods. Do you have the skills to scale your strategy? Enter XML and XPath, two languages that provide deep insight into content with superhuman efficiency. This session teaches code-shy content strategists enough of these languages to be effective. You may be used to interviewing your users. Now learn how to query your content itself!
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Structured Strategy: How to Supercharge Your Content Analysis with XML and XPath
- 1. Structured Strategy: How to Supercharge Your Content Analysis with XML and XPath Josh Anderson
- 2. Who I am • Information Architect at Precision Content • Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC) Foundation • Co-Organized World Information Architecture Day 2023 Toronto • Master of Information from the University of Toronto
- 3. 3 We are experts in structured content. We’re a full-service, end-to-end technical communications consultancy, technology innovator, and systems integrator offering professional services, training, and technology. Areas of expertise • structured authoring methods • content lifecycle management • DITA/XML design and implementation • information architecture • content strategy, • and structured content delivery.
- 4. 4 Who is this presentation for? People who… • strategize, plan for, and otherwise work with text content • understand the benefits of structured content • are familiar with XML but perhaps not with XPath • want to learn how to take their content analysis skills to the next level
- 5. 5 Structured content Content is easier to use and understand when organized in a predictable way. Content is written to fit a model: • Title • Presenter • Description • Speaker Bio
- 6. 6 Structure makes content FAIR Findable Accessible Interoperable Reusable “The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship” was published in Scientific Data in 2016
- 7. 7 An example of structure: HTML Content is contained inside opening and closing tags. Sometimes elements contain other elements. All elements are contained within a single root.
- 8. 8 There’s just one problem… These elements don’t tell me anything about what the content is about!
- 9. 9 XML • XML is a way to store information • XML stands for “eXtensible Markup Language” • “Extensible” means that you define your own structure HTML: Pre-defined tags XML: Define your own tags
- 10. 10 How do you define your own structure? You define your structure, or your content model, in a Document Type Definition (DTD).
- 11. 11 Defining your structure What you can define with a DTD What you can’t define with a DTD • Elements • Attributes • If an element can contain text, another element, or both • Order of elements • If something is required or optional • Length of content • Occurrence constraints • What text can go inside elements
- 12. 12 Structure helps you analyze your content • Structure is a prerequisite to performing content analysis at scale • You want a way to tell if your content is valid or invalid • Semantic structures can be understood by both people and computers • Using a widely adopted standard like XML lets us take advantage of specialized tools • Oftentimes you can adopt a standard structure rather than inventing your own
- 13. 13 XML-based standards Some extensions of XML have become standards in their own right Scalable Vector Graphics Resource Description Framework Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
- 14. 14 Finding structure • What if your content is unstructured? • Look for patterns in • attributes • classes • common parent/sibling elements, and • common text strings.
- 15. 15 Creating structure • Break your content down into microcontent • about one primary idea, fact, or concept • easily scannable • labelled for clear identification and meaning, and • appropriately written and formatted for use anywhere and anytime it is needed.
- 16. 16 Microcontent structure Source: The DITA Style Guide – Best Practices for Authors. Tony Self. www.ditastyle.com • You do not need code to have structure • Structure means • systematic labelling • modular, topic-based architecture • constrained writing environments, and • separation of content and form.
- 17. 17 Focus Information about hours of work Requirement for unplanned absences Information about lunch breaks Requirement for planned absences
- 20. What is XPath?
- 21. 21 What is XPath? • XPath is a language that lets you identify particular parts of XML documents • In XPath, we write “location paths” • Example of an XPath location path: //bookstore/book/@id • XPath can help you answer queries like… • “Show me every element called ‘book’.” • “Show me the parent element of the element called ‘price’.” • “Show me all the elements that have the attribute ‘language’ set to ‘English’.” • … and much more • XPath is used in other XML-related languages like XQuery and XSLT
- 22. 22 Image source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Example-of-XML-document-and-XML-tree-representation_fig1_315998361 XML is structured like a tree
- 23. 23 1. The root node 2. Element nodes 3. Text nodes 4. Attribute nodes 5. Comment nodes 6. Processing instruction nodes 7. Namespace nodes Seven kinds of XML nodes
- 24. 24 1. The root node 2. Element nodes 3. Text nodes 4. Attribute nodes 5. Comment nodes 6. Processing instruction nodes 7. Namespace nodes Seven kinds of XML nodes
- 25. 25 1. The root node 2. Element nodes 3. Text nodes 4. Attribute nodes 5. Comment nodes 6. Processing instruction nodes 7. Namespace nodes Seven kinds of XML nodes
- 26. 26 1. The root node 2. Element nodes 3. Text nodes 4. Attribute nodes 5. Comment nodes 6. Processing instruction nodes 7. Namespace nodes Seven kinds of XML nodes
- 27. 27 1. The root node 2. Element nodes 3. Text nodes 4. Attribute nodes 5. Comment nodes 6. Processing instruction nodes 7. Namespace nodes Seven kinds of XML nodes
- 28. 28 1. The root node 2. Element nodes 3. Text nodes 4. Attribute nodes 5. Comment nodes 6. Processing instruction nodes 7. Namespace nodes Seven kinds of XML nodes
- 29. 29 Node selectors Expression Description / Selects the document root node // Selects from all descendants of the context node and the context node itself . Selects the current node .. Selects the parent of the current node @ Selects attribute nodes * Selects any element node, regardless of type.
- 30. 30 Select the bookstore element node How to select nodes in XPath
- 31. 31 Select the bookstore element node • /bookstore • //bookstore How to select nodes in XPath
- 32. 32 Select all book element nodes How to select nodes in XPath
- 33. 33 Select all book element nodes • /bookstore/book • //book How to select nodes in XPath
- 34. 34 Select all price element nodes How to select nodes in XPath
- 35. 35 Select all price element nodes • /bookstore/book/ price • //price How to select nodes in XPath
- 36. 36 Select all lang attribute nodes How to select nodes in XPath
- 37. 37 Select all lang attribute nodes • //@lang How to select nodes in XPath
- 38. 38 Select all comment nodes How to select nodes in XPath
- 39. 39 Select all comment nodes • //comment() How to select nodes in XPath
- 40. 40 Select the parent element nodes of the title element nodes How to select nodes in XPath
- 41. 41 Select the parent element nodes of the title element nodes • //title/.. How to select nodes in XPath
- 42. 42 Select the comment nodes that are children of book elements How to select nodes in XPath
- 43. 43 Select the comment nodes that are children of book elements • /bookstore/book/ comment() • //book/comment() How to select nodes in XPath
- 44. 44 Axes An axis is a direction that we travel along to get to different parts of an XML document. All XPath location paths have an axis. So far, we have used “abbreviated location paths.” Unabbreviated, they use a double colon before the node test. It looks like this: //child::bookstore Image source: https://jrebecchi.github.io/xpath-helper/xpath-axes.html
- 45. 45 Select any comment that is a descendant of the book element Selecting with axes in XPath
- 46. 46 Select any comment that is a descendant of the book element • //book/descendant:: comment() Selecting with axes in XPath
- 47. 47 Select the parent element of the price element Selecting with axes in XPath
- 48. 48 Select the parent element of the price element • //price/.. • //price/parent::element() Selecting with axes in XPath
- 49. 49 Select the sibling elements following the title element Selecting with axes in XPath
- 50. 50 Select the sibling elements following the title element • //title/following- sibling::element() Selecting with axes in XPath
- 51. 51 Predicates • Predicates are like a filter on your results • Predicates appear inside [square brackets] • Predicates are Boolean expressions • The full syntax of an XPath location path is axis::node[predicate] • Axis and node are required. Predicate is optional. • If you do not specify an axis, it is assumed to be “child::”
- 52. 52 Select the book with the title “Harry Potter” Selecting with predicates in XPath
- 53. 53 Selecting with predicates in XPath Select the book with the title “Harry Potter” • //book[title=“Harry Potter”]
- 54. 54 Select the titles that are in English Selecting with predicates in XPath
- 55. 55 Selecting with predicates in XPath Select the titles that are in English • //title[@lang=“eng”]
- 56. 56 Select the textbooks Selecting with predicates in XPath
- 57. 57 Selecting with predicates in XPath Select the textbooks • //book[@category= “textbook”]
- 58. 58 Select the second book Selecting with predicates in XPath
- 59. 59 Selecting with predicates in XPath Select the second book • //book[2]
- 60. 60 Select the second textbook Selecting with predicates in XPath
- 61. 61 Selecting with predicates in XPath Select the second textbook • //book[@category= “textbook”][2]
- 62. 64 Real-world content analysis with XPath • From experience, I know that tables inside tables often have unpredictable issues. I want to check on them. • //table/table • I need to change all the section titles called “Introduction” to “Overview.” Did I miss any? • //section[title=“Overview”] • The client wants a disclaimer paragraph at the very end of the topic. Are there any disclaimers that are in the wrong place? • //p[@outputclass=“disclaimer”]/following-sibling::element()
- 63. 65 Ideas for content analysis with XPath
- 64. 66 Ideas for content analysis with XPath • Look for outliers • Ensure that elements are used for their intended purpose (not just for some formatting shortcut) • Check consistency across different types of elements • Track down unnecessary child elements
- 65. 67 XML and XPath tools
- 66. 68 XML and XPath resources • W3Schools tutorials • https://www.w3schools.com/xml/ • XPath cheat sheet • https://devhints.io/xpath
- 67. Thank You! Are you ready to upgrade, transform, and future-enable your content? Contact us and we’ll show you what’s possible. precisioncontent.com | more-info@precisioncontent.com | 1(647)265-8500
Editor's Notes
- Precision Content is a consultancy specializing in end-to-end services for technical communications. We provide services in writer training, content strategy, information architecture, content lifecycle management, systems integration, and content publishing. We use our expertise in microcontent and structured authoring with DITA/XML to empower our clients across a variety of industries to modernize their content. [click]
- https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
- Everything not permitted is forbidden
- Image source: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/xsd-full-form/
- https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SVG_Logo.svg https://www.w3.org/RDF/icons/
- https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
- https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
- [Image – “Hours of Work” section from the old handbook] [Image – The series of briefer microcontent topics in the updated handbook. “Work Hour Limits,” “Time Tracking Requirement,” “Your Work Environment,” etc.
- [Image – highlight both reference and principle information in the original employee handbook topic “Hours of Work”] [Image – show two separate topics (with type info, if possible) that were broken out of the single mixed-function topic “Hours of Work”]
- (Maybe what I can do for this is go on Heretto, find a topic, then delete the headings and paragraph breaks and such and use that as my example of “unstructured” content) Maybe “Hours of work” from the old employee handbook compared to the rewritten passage in the new one Link to old employee handbook: https://ascan.sharepoint.com/CorpCommunications/Forms/AllItems.aspx?id=%2FCorpCommunications%2FPrecision%20Content%20Employee%20Handbook%2Epdf&parent=%2FCorpCommunications Look at some of the other PCAS microcontent presentations for some stuff about what we mean by structure. In fact, use material from those presentations throughout your talk.
- https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
- https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
- https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
- https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp
- https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp