[Tech] - XML Parsing

[Jack]

Hey all...

Since the main way in which data will be shared is through xml, i thought some of the people who will be writing the software (includeing myself) might need some re-freshing (or just freshing ;)) on how to parse xml.

First, what are some good sites you've found that explain xml well? Second, (I hope i'm right in saying this) I think there are different ways of setting up xml. What way do you think would be the best for FSN?

Jack

[Brandon Martus]

Something to look at & consider: XML-RPC (http://www.xml-rpc.com)

I haven't messed with it much, but for what you may possibly be doing, with the distributed stuff, this may be a good option. You don't have to parse the XML, technically, since the XML-RPC libraries will pull the data from the XML & put it into data structures (arrays, strings, etc). On their site, they have implementations (http://www.xmlrpc.com/directory/1568/implementations) listed using many different languages (c++, java, perl, php, etc)

And, general XML help: W3 Schools (http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp)

[rbayer]

If you're doing it in PHP, php.net has some decent reference material on the subject, although there isn't a whole lot of hand-holding involved, so you'd probably want to find an actual tutorial somewhere first. Anyways, the link is:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.xml.php

[AJ Quick]

PHP should be the standard method for web retrieval, with many different options open on how one would want to phrase the data. A good site for XML, is irronically..

http://www.xml.com/ (Good for those who don't know what it is)
http://www.xmlrpc.com/ (As Brandon said)
http://www.ucc.ie:8080/cocoon/xmlfaq
http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/xml.html