Hyperx
04-07-06, 08:03 PM
Using XML: A PHP Developer's Primer
Adam Delves
This series of articles will focus on XML, its applications in modern day web development and how PHP fits into this niche. In this article, we will focus specifically on the tools provided to us by PHP which enable us to manipulate XML data sources.
What is XML and Why Use it?
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a W3C standard designed to allow the easy exchange, storage and use of data between web applications and services.
Data encoded using the XML standard has meaning and structure which can be interpreted easily by humans and computers. XML data is platform and application independent. Need I say more? This in itself makes XML an ideal data exchange format for the internet (it was in fact developed for this very purpose). The recent increase in speed of broadband connections and the ever growing need by the consumer for feature-rich applications able to communicate with each other and share data across any medium means that XML web services and applications are becoming more and more abundant.
XML was created to address the problem of describing richly structured data on the web, which had thus far only been addressed loosely through the clever use of HTML.
source (http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/adam_delves20060206.php3)
Adam Delves
This series of articles will focus on XML, its applications in modern day web development and how PHP fits into this niche. In this article, we will focus specifically on the tools provided to us by PHP which enable us to manipulate XML data sources.
What is XML and Why Use it?
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a W3C standard designed to allow the easy exchange, storage and use of data between web applications and services.
Data encoded using the XML standard has meaning and structure which can be interpreted easily by humans and computers. XML data is platform and application independent. Need I say more? This in itself makes XML an ideal data exchange format for the internet (it was in fact developed for this very purpose). The recent increase in speed of broadband connections and the ever growing need by the consumer for feature-rich applications able to communicate with each other and share data across any medium means that XML web services and applications are becoming more and more abundant.
XML was created to address the problem of describing richly structured data on the web, which had thus far only been addressed loosely through the clever use of HTML.
source (http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/adam_delves20060206.php3)