Introduction to XML

XML is a standard, simple, self-describing way of encoding both text and data so that content can be processed with relatively little human intervention and exchanged across diverse hardware, operating systems, and applications.

In brief, XML offers:

• A widely adopted standard way of representing text and data.
• In a format that can be processed without much human or machine intelligence.
• Exchanged across platforms, languages, and applications.
• and used with a wide range of development tools and utilities.

XML is similar enough to HTML in its actual format (both are closely related to the SGML markup definition language that has been an ISO standard since 1986) so that those familiar with HTML can fairly easily pick up basic XML knowledge. But there are two fundamental differences:

• Separation of form and content -- HTML mostly consists of tags defining the appearance of text; in XML the tags generally define the structure and content of the data, with actual appearance specified by a specific application or an associated stylesheet.

• XML is extensible -- tags can be defined by individuals or organizations for some specific application, whereas the HTML standard tagset is defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

HTML has been very successful at providing information to the Web; however, HTML has some limitations. XML provides additional flexibility because the documents are self describing. An interesting feature of using XML for web content is in the area of searches. Search engines are able to use both the tag and the data as part of the search criteria, which allows more precise matches of web content. XML documents can be viewed in XML-enabled browsers by using eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) stylesheets to format the document. Using XML in business-to-business transactions and as the common communication vehicle between disparate applications requires a mechanism that will read and interpret the XML document into a computer friendly form. Application programs require a means to access the individual pieces of information (elements) contained within each XML document. This is accomplished by using the XML parser to render the document in a structured form (hierarchical tree structure) which allows each element of the document to be accessed and manipulated.

Each XML Document consists of elements specific to that document. An element with content has a start tag and an end tag, with the content in between the two tags. Elements without content, often used for structuring, can have a start tag with a slash (/) before the greater than sign (>) to denote that no content exists. Elements can be organised into a structure, much like files are today; the nesting is reflected by the position of the start and end tags.

Document Object Model (DOM)

The Document Object Model is basically a structured view of an XML document. An XML document is really a linear sequence of characters, when manipulating the data it is more useful to look at the data in other ways. The XML document should be considered to be a tree structure with each element being a branch or a leaf. The DOM views an XML document as a tree of nodes, a node being an object with which it can interact.

XML Parser

A Parser is a program that is able to read an XML document, determine if it is well formed, and check that the format of the file is valid. Schema's can be used to define the layout and values contained within the XML documents, XML Schemas express shared vocabularies and allow machines to carry out rules made by people. They provide a means for defining the structure, content and semantics of XML documents.

Electronic Commerce Solutions understands your B2B marketplace integration needs. Our integrated XML solution allows you to leverage existing AS/400 Applications to exchange enterprise-to-enterprise information over the Internet.

The ECS/XML Processor allows you to quickly and easily link existing AS/400 applications with any trading partner, regardless of dialect requirements. The ECS/XML Processor provides you with seamless Exchange-to-Exchange compatibility by translating AS/400 data into a common syntax and then simply mapping this information to the target dialect format.

This approach allows companies to rapidly deploy new e-business initiatives without re-engineering back office applications or being forced to adopt one.

B2B e-commerce solutions should reduce the overall cost of transacting

business. ECS provides you with a flexible, scalable, and reliable solution that reduces costly human intervention and time-consuming, inefficient paper-based procedures by supporting the automation of routine tasks such as purchase orders and order acknowledgement.

XML is a universal B2B e-commerce solution that addresses all of your needs and concerns.

• Openness - XML is a W3C standard, endorsed by software industry market leaders. IBM, Sun, Microsoft, Netscape, DataChannel, SAP and many others have already announced support for XML. Microsoft will use XML as the exchange format for its Office product line, while both Microsoft's and Netscape's Web browsers support XML. SAP has announced support of XML through the SAP Business Connector with R/3.

• Simplicity - Information coded in XML is easy to read and understand, plus it can be processed easily by computers as well as humans via a Web Browser.

• Supports multilingual documents and Unicode - This is important for the internationalisation of applications.
  

The ECS/XML Processor is an extension module to ECS/integrated email providing translation between DB/400 files and XML to support any AS/400 business application transaction. The ECS/XML Processor generates XML formatted transactions sourced from application data in an AS/400 database. Inbound XML transactions are mapped to DB/400 files ready for posting to the AS/400 business application.

Management of Trading Partner relationships and communications is performed using ECS/integrated email (ECS/ie). The XML transaction files can be emailed, FTP'd to your Trading Partners or published on a Web Server

ECS/ie can be configured to use any MAPI compliant email application, such as Microsoft Outlook, Exchange, Lotus Notes & Novell Groupwise. ECS/ie can send automated business transactions or error messages in TXT, PDF, HTML or XML formats as email attachments or SMS messages to mobile phones. ECS/ie also performs automated archiving of AS/400 spool files and can publish AS/400 spool files as web pages on a company Intranet or the internet.

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ECS/integrated email & ECS/ie are trademarks of Electronic Commerce Solutions, Ltd. Other brand names and product names used in this document are the trademarks and trade names of their respective holders and may be registered.