XML Programming - Downloads, Articles, News & Resources

The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose specification for creating custom markup languages. It is classified as an extensible language because it allows its users to define their own elements. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of structured data across different information systems, particularly via the Internet, and it is used both to encode documents and to serialize data. In the latter context, it is comparable with other text-based serialization languages such as JSON and YAML

It started as a simplified subset of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), and is designed to be relatively human-legible. By adding semantic constraints, application languages can be implemented in XML. These include XHTML, RSS, MathML, GraphML, Scalable Vector Graphics, MusicXML, and thousands of others. Moreover, XML is sometimes used as the specification language for such application languages.

XML is recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It is a fee-free open standard. The recommendation specifies both the lexical grammar and the requirements for parsing.

Commentators have offered various critiques of XML, suggesting circumstances where XML provides both advantages and potential disadvantages.

Advantages of XML

- It is text-based.
- It supports Unicode, allowing almost any information in any written human language to be communicated.
- It can represent common computer science data structures: records, lists and trees.
- Its self-documenting format describes structure and field names as well as specific values.
- The strict syntax and parsing requirements make the necessary parsing algorithms extremely simple, efficient, and consistent.
- XML is heavily used as a format for document storage and processing, both online and offline.
- It is based on international standards.
- It can be updated incrementally.
- It allows validation using schema languages such as XSD and Schematron, which makes effective unit-testing, firewalls, acceptance testing, contractual specification and software construction easier.
- The hierarchical structure is suitable for most (but not all) types of documents.
- It is platform-independent, thus relatively immune to changes in technology.
- Forward and backward compatibility are relatively easy to maintain despite changes in DTD or Schema.
- Its predecessor, SGML, has been in use since 1986, so there is extensive experience and software available.

Disadvantages of XML

- XML syntax is redundant or large relative to binary representations of similar data, especially with tabular data.
- The redundancy may affect application efficiency through higher storage, transmission and processing costs.
- XML syntax is verbose, especially for human readers, relative to other alternative 'text-based' data transmission formats.
- The hierarchical model for representation is limited in comparison to an object oriented graph.
- Expressing overlapping (non-hierarchical) node relationships requires extra effort.
- XML namespaces are problematic to use and namespace support can be difficult to correctly implement in an XML parser.
- XML is commonly depicted as "self-documenting" but this depiction ignores critical ambiguities.
- The distinction between content and attributes in XML seems unnatural to some and makes designing XML data structures harder.

Download XML Editor

Download a free trial of Stylus Studio, the world's leading XML development tool including an XML editor, XSLT Editor, XSLT Debugger, XML Schema Editor, XQuery Editor, DTD Editor ...

XML Parser Download, XML Software Downloads, Download XML Parser

XML Parser Install Notes. The installs do not create desktop icons or runnable programs. For the ActiveX XML Component, the ...

XML - Reviews and free downloads at Download.com

Tristana Writer RSS Editor, ExamXML, XMLBlueprint, oXygen XML Editor and XSLT Debugger, RSS Wizard and more - Reviews and free downloads at Download.com

Downloads

XML Downloads This page provides downloads for building XML applications using Microsoft technologies.

XML Viewer - Free software downloads and reviews - CNET Download.com

Come to CNET Download.com for free and safe XML Viewer downloads. Modify and examine the contents of an XML file.

Download details: XML Notepad 2007

XML Notepad 2007 provides a simple intuitive user interface for browsing and editing XML documents. ... XML Notepad 2007 provides a simple intuitive user interface for browsing and ...

XML - Reviews and free downloads at Download.com

Tristana Writer RSS Editor, oXygen XML Editor and XSLT Debugger, RSS Wizard, Easy RSS Mixer, Feed Editor and more - Reviews and free downloads at Download.com

XML Gateway - Free software downloads and reviews - CNET Download.com

Come to CNET Download.com for free and safe XML Gateway downloads. Move data between XML documents and relational databases with sets of tools and XML interfaces.

EDRM XML Downloads » Welcome to the EDRM XML Downloads Site

The Official Home for All EDRM XML Downloads. To receive notices of new EDRM XML downloads, please register (at the bottom of the window) or subscribe (to the right). Comments ...

developerWorks : XML : Downloads and products

Browse this list of products and downloads, including code and tools, for your XML applications. ... 4Suite 4Suite is a collection of XML processing tools for XML and RDF ...

AttEdit XML Attribute Editor - Free software downloads and reviews ...

Come to CNET Download.com for free and safe AttEdit XML Attribute Editor downloads. Easily add or modify the attributes and values of XML tags.

XML-Serializer - Free software downloads and reviews - CNET Download ...

Come to CNET Download.com for free and safe XML-Serializer downloads. Bind native XML to and from Java objects.

XML Copy Editor - Free software downloads and reviews - CNET Download ...

Come to CNET Download.com for free and safe XML Copy Editor downloads. Edit XML files. ... License: Free Editor's Rating:

Easy XML Editor - Free software downloads and reviews - CNET Download ...

Come to CNET Download.com for free and safe Easy XML Editor downloads. Edit XML files. ... License: Free Editor's Rating:

Contact XML Programming vendors through data-loads.com ...bd@data-loads.com