Wingnut
Veteran Member
"dummy" (ohhh ... what a choice for monikers ... makes some of wince!)
here's the simple explanation I use at work to quickly explain the business use of XML (we're heavily into it to replace EDI for purchase orders, etc.
XML - tagged "business" communicationw wherein "tagged" means that each piece of data contains an explanation of what the data is. It can also be layered as in <currency,USD>12.00</currency>
DTD - agreed upon format for an XML message. Parsers are finicky ... if it is looking for Part Number after Quantity ... it will not see it in front of that tag. So ... you and your trading partner need to agree (and then stick to) a DTD in order to automagically parse incoming data.
The data between tags is NOT sticky ... which is why there is a tag.
The XML format is great for moving data from machine to machine or from customer to supplier, etc .... but it sure takes a long time to get set up (in my experience) and woe betide us (me) should my trading partner need a new data element ... or a new extrinsic (agreed upon data element that is not included in the DTD)
that's the $0.02 tour based on my daily usage of cXML (small "c" being "commercial")
too bad that common sense ain't
here's the simple explanation I use at work to quickly explain the business use of XML (we're heavily into it to replace EDI for purchase orders, etc.
XML - tagged "business" communicationw wherein "tagged" means that each piece of data contains an explanation of what the data is. It can also be layered as in <currency,USD>12.00</currency>
DTD - agreed upon format for an XML message. Parsers are finicky ... if it is looking for Part Number after Quantity ... it will not see it in front of that tag. So ... you and your trading partner need to agree (and then stick to) a DTD in order to automagically parse incoming data.
The data between tags is NOT sticky ... which is why there is a tag.
The XML format is great for moving data from machine to machine or from customer to supplier, etc .... but it sure takes a long time to get set up (in my experience) and woe betide us (me) should my trading partner need a new data element ... or a new extrinsic (agreed upon data element that is not included in the DTD)
that's the $0.02 tour based on my daily usage of cXML (small "c" being "commercial")
too bad that common sense ain't
