About XML

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web based on HTML. He envisages the Semantic Web: a Web based on XML. The Semantic Web offers automation - integration - reuse of data - as well as display. The Web will only reach its potential when data can be shared and processed by automatic tools.

Xdoc, from Trah, is a conversion tool to convert delimited data (including CSV and TAB) to XML.

What is XML ?

• eXtensible markup language
• a way to describe structured data
• a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard
• platform-independent
• a way to create your own custom languages
• license-free and well-supported
• the future of computing?

The most surprising thing about XML is that is does not do anything. XML was created to structure and store information.

To use XML you need software specfically written to do something with XML such as parsers and browsers.

There are many books on XML which are available at Amazon.co.uk

This is what some XML looks like

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<definition>
<topic>XML</topic>
<description>eXtensible Markup Language</description>
<text>Xdoc available at www.xdoc.co.uk is a great tool to convert data to XML !</text>
</definition>

The Syntax of XML is very strict but easy to understand

• XML is plain text with tags enclosed in angle brackets <example>
• XML elements must have a closing tag </example>
• XML tags are case sensitive
• XML elements must be properly nested
• XML documents must have a root tag
• Attribute values must always be quoted <example id="53">
• White space is conserved
• CRLF is converted to LF

XML Advantages

These are some of the benefits of XML.

• XML provides a way to standardise the interchange of data from incompatible systems
• XML allows businesses to create and define their own XML languages
• XML can be used to label data held on the web so that it is visible to XML reading software
• XML is an independent standard
• data can be reused and transformed and displayed in different ways

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<prompt>
<greeting>Hello World</greeting>
</prompt>

A Technical Introduction to XML (Norman Walsh)
XML Tutorial ( W3Schools)
New to XML (IBM)
XML Tutorial (Microsoft)