Real-world enterprise application integration solutions

XML: eXtensible Markup Language

XML is a markup language for documents containing structured information. XML has been adopted as a worldwide standard and a large number of vendors provide commercial support in a variety of products.

While it looks similar to HTML, XML provides a significantly greater degree of flexibility than HTML because it allows users to define their own tags. This flexibility allows users to structure their data in customized ways. The flexible structure of XML also makes it ideal for passing messages over the Internet.

XML documents are processed using one of a number of XML parsers that are designed to read the XML tags and capture the data contained within those tags.

Additional Resources:

• xml.coverpages.org provides one of the most comprehensive sets of XML references as well as coverage of new applications and developer tools that use XML.
• Good introductory material as well as new products and XML news can be found at www.xml.com .
• www.xmlhack.com provides some of the most current developer news for and from the XML community.
• Café Con Leche provides an extensive compilation of XML news and resources.
• The W3C manages the standards.

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