Why XML? Newbie seeking answer!

[jacky_cheecheo]

Hi,

ALhtough XML has been around for such a long time, but this technology is still new to me as i have never ventured into this topic before.

May someone please explain to me why we use xml since we have a database or text file?

Is it because its faster or is there something so important about it!

I'm a newbie, please be kind to me...thanks to all!

[fredmv]

Did you see the sticky?

[liorean]

See this thread: <http://codingforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32346> and the sticky Fred mentioned.

In short, for practical usage you store the data in a database, but represent the structure, either in the database or constructed from the database, as XML. There's technically no difference between a text file or a database text field and XML, except for that XML have non-data content that describes the structure of the data as well.

XML is not what I consider a storage format, even if it can be used as such. The storage is as files in a file system or text entries in a relational or hierarchical database. And while XML is content, it is not data. XML is structure. That structure can be represented in a textual form WITHIN the content, thus adding structural and data content to the textual entity. That entity may be stored as a file or as an entry in a database, and it's main purpose is to make a generalised form of structure creation that can be transferred between systems and platforms, converted between high endian and low endian, converted between different charset encodings, wihtout losing the structure, in a medium where the only think you can transfer is raw data, where even the structure and meta data has to be described within the raw data. It should be noted that an heirarchical database - or an emulation of such a system in a relational database - can store the structure in such a way that the XML format is not needed, and you instead use the database for both structure and storage, with the textual entities containing only data. Most commonly you store the XML as textual entries within a database instead.

[jacky_cheecheo]

thanks for filling me in man, at least i get a little idea of it right now...

and erm, thanks for the sticky link...didn't see that though..

thanks...