What Is the Characteristic Deployment Objective of XML?
Extensible Markup Language makes life more productive for computers and humans by allowing them to communicate and exchange information efficiently. A mainframe computer, for example, can talk to a pocket cellphone using XML technology. The characteristic deployment objective of XML is to create the data structures needed to make this type of universal communication possible.
Other People Are Reading
-
History
-
XML evolved from multiple technologies such as Standard Generalized Markup Language and HTML, the markup language used to create Web pages. The World Wide Internet Consortium created XML in 1996. The characteristic deployment objective was to allow users to exploit the power of SGML while maintaining the simplicity of HTML.There are two versions of XML: 1.0 and 1.1. They are almost identical except for the way they handle Unicode characters. When viewing an XML document, you will see the version number at the top of the page, as seen in the following example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
XML Structure
-
Web pages appear in your browser because browsers decode HTML tags and produce the buttons, menus and other items on a Web page. A "<h>" tag, as shown below, places a heading on a page:
<h1>This is a Heading</>
HTML has predefined tags; XML does not. You can define your own XML tags to describe any type of data. An Android phone developer, for example, can create a tag named <resources>, as shown below:
<resources>
<string name="color">red </string>
</resources>This "<resources>" tag contains an attribute named color whose value is red. The phone can access that value just as easily as a human or a computer application that receives the same XML.
-
Working with XML
-
XML documents don't just exist on paper. Personal computers, Web servers and mobile devices receive XML data over networks and the Internet. Programming Languages such as C# have built-in classes that create XML and read incoming XML. Applications often use XML to store data instead of using database management systems such as SQL and MySQL. Many media players, for example, allow you to build and maintain playlists that consist of XML data. These XML files reside on your hard drive and are readable if you know where to find them.
Web Services
-
Web Services are applications running on remote computers that you can access. A Web service sends data in a variety of methods including JavaScript Object Notation and XML. If your application needs to display current weather conditions, you can query a Web service that has that information. If the service sends back weather data in XML format, you application can extract it and use the relevant parts in your application. You can also build your own XML Web service and share it with others on the Web.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Pixland/Getty Images
