XML and its possible uses

Rutkovszky Edéné <kata@delfin.klte.hu>

Debreceni Egyetem Matematikai és Informatikai Int.

Krauszné Princz Mária <pmaria@delfin.klte.hu>

Debreceni Egyetem Műszaki Főiskolai Kar

XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. Ratified by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), XML is quickly becoming the standard way to identify and describe data on the web because it has proved broadly implementable and easy to deploy. Like HTML, XML is a subset of SGML (Structured Generalized Markup Language), optimized for delivery over the web.

XML is an ideal technology to use as a cross platform data interchange mechanism. XML is ideal for two reasons. First, there is broad agreement that XML is a standard. The second reason that XML is ideal is that it is a data description technology that aligns well with the to exchange data between business processes and applications without regard to source or destination platform issues. The flexible nature of XML reduces the need for the applications to move information in a set order or format.

This paper describes some problems with HTML, gives a short basic overview of XML, describes its possible uses and some software tools.