How Can XML be Used?
XML is used in many aspects of web development, often to
simplify data storage and sharing.
XML Separates Data from HTML
If you need to display dynamic data in your HTML document, it will take a lot
of work to edit the HTML each time the data changes.
With XML, data can be stored in separate XML files. This way
you can concentrate on using HTML for layout and display, and be sure that changes in the underlying data will not
require any changes to the HTML.
With a few lines of JavaScript, you can read an external XML file and update
the data content of your HTML.
You will learn more about this in a later chapter of this tutorial.
XML Simplifies Data Sharing
In the real world, computer systems and databases contain data in
incompatible formats.
XML data is stored in plain text format. This provides a software- and
hardware-independent way of storing data.
This makes it much easier to create
data that different applications can share.
XML Simplifies Data Transport
With XML, data can easily be exchanged between incompatible systems.
One of the
most time-consuming
challenges for developers is to exchange data between incompatible systems over the Internet.
Exchanging data as
XML greatly reduces this complexity, since the data can be read by different
incompatible applications.
XML Simplifies Platform Changes
Upgrading to new systems (hardware or software platforms), is always very
time consuming. Large amounts of data must be converted and incompatible data is
often lost.
XML data is stored in text format. This makes it easier to expand or upgrade
to new operating systems, new applications, or new browsers, without losing
data.
XML Makes Your Data More Available
Since XML is independent of hardware, software and application, XML can make
your data more available and useful.
Different
applications can access your data, not only in HTML pages, but also from XML data sources.
With XML, your data can be available to all kinds of "reading
machines" (Handheld computers, voice machines, news feeds, etc), and make it more available for blind
people, or people with other disabilities.
XML is Used to Create New Internet Languages
A lot of new Internet languages are created with XML.
Here are some examples:
- XHTML the latest version of HTML
- WSDL for describing available web services
- WAP and WML as markup languages for handheld devices
- RSS languages for news feeds
- RDF and OWL for describing resources and ontology
- SMIL for describing multimedia for the web
If Developers Have Sense
If they DO have sense, future applications will exchange their data in
XML.
The future might give us word processors, spreadsheet
applications and databases that can read each other's data in a pure text format,
without any conversion utilities in between.
We can only pray that all the software vendors will
agree.
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