XLink is the XML way of tackling the issue of creating links between documents. It is very similar to it’s HTML counterpart, the <a> tag. But having a dedicated element for handling linking is not in XML’s spirit ( it would impose unnecessary restrictions that would hamper flexibility ), therefore this functionality is implemented in a separate namespace ( xmlns:xlink=http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink ), and attributed to elements with by setting certain properties.
It can be used for the roles fulfilled by <a> in HTML – to enable the user to navigate to a different document; but they’re more versatile, and have a number of attributes that control it’s behaviour.
An XLink can be of two types: simple and extended. The simple XLink has similar similar capabilities to traditional HTML links: they provide a uni-directional connection between two resources.
Example of simple XLink usage:
1 <?xml version="1.0"?>
2 <links xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
3
4 <blog xlink:type="simple"
5 xlink:href="http://mihairotaru.blogspot.com">Ram's blog</blog>
6
7 <blog xlink:type="simple"
8 xlink:href="http://native-dev.blogspot.com">Second blog</blog>
9
10 </links>
