The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a subset of SGML that is developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Its goal is to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML. XML has been designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML. You can use XML as both a datastore and I/O mechanism.
A well-formedness XML parser has been added into ILE COBOL, for more information see Processing XML Documents.
For more information about XML, see http://www.w3.org/XML
IBM has developed two tools which can be used to integrate XML and COBOL programs. IBM's XML for C++ parser (XML4C) is a validating XML parser written in a portable subset of C++. It consists of three shared libraries (2 code and 1 data) which provide classes for parsing, generating, manipulating, and validating XML documents.
In order to use the parser with procedural languages such as C, COBOL and RPG, you will also need XML Interface for RPG. This wrapper interface allows ILE C, RPG and COBOL programs on the iSeries server to interface with the XML parser.
Both these products are constantly evolving. They are available through alphaWorks, which gives early adopters direct access to IBM's emerging "alpha-code" technologies. You can download alpha code and participate in online discussions with IBM's researchers and developers. For the latest information about these alpha technologies, including hardware and software requirments, see http://www.alphaWorks.ibm.com/
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