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php-general | 2000071

Re: [PHP] What is actaully XML?? From: Alex Black (enigma <email protected>)
Date: 07/13/00

> Nah, the problem is the media is making XML out to be something it's not.
> A tool for web documents. Everybody says that it's good because the data
> is seperate from the presentation, and in theory it's good, but it comes at
> the expense of interface until XML support matures somewhat. For now,

eh?

XML is so simple it was mature at 1.0... I think this is a common
misconception: XML is a set of rules for defining custom markup languages,
it is not a language itself. As a result the uses for XML are limitless.

> it's really just another step between data and your browser, but that will
> change.

? no.

XML is useful because people can agree how to describe a particular
something, then pass it around with software that knows about the meaning of
those descriptions.

You can send someone a simple XML document, and they can format it an
present it with HTML or WML or however they like.

> The best use of XML is allowing different programs to share data, including
> a human (browser), because it's standardised- because the translation to
> html
> happens outside of the xml file, it won't be corrupted by the likes of
> <blink>
> tags and so forth, so programs to read the information won't need to be as
> complex as they would to seperate the data from the presentation.

that was what XSLT was supposed to be for, I think everyone here knows that
my opinion of XSLT is fairly low.

I'm of the opinion that if you're going to setup an array of data in XML,
and you want to move the data form the XML into HTML, you're better off
loading up all the data into an associative array in PHP, and using whatever
html template you like to output it.

> Did that help anybody? Any other opinions?

In a very limited way I use XML for documents now. When the editing tools
for structured content improve, I'll start to use it in combination with
WebDAV to manage the publishing process for a website.

Word can do some simple bull right now, I'm looking at building a simple
editor which gets style definitions from a server via HTTP, and allows users
to markup documents with a simple gui that shows them the style changes
based on markup.

The other major use for XML, which is the one that has been the most
commercially successful, is data exchange between businesses. Which is a
huge deal, and XML does make everything about a thousand percent easier. All
you have to do is send someone a little doc telling them what you are
sending them, and they can be ready for it without much trouble :)

best,

_alex 

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