RE: XML: PDA device --> BigMagicBox --> AS400 native database file (& v.v.)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx / Scott Klement
> Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2004 6:37 PM
>
> If the Win2k server is converting the file to CSV or SQL, why do you need
> to work with the XML directly?

The middleware is pricey, so if the iSeries has a conversion tool built
in...

> The thing you have to understand about XML is that all of the tags are
> user-defined. That's not true of HTML! In HTML, you have specific tags
> like <p> or <table> or <img>.  In XML, you can put anything you want in
> there... you could have:
<snip>

Yeah, I did a little online reading on the subject last night.  XML does
nothing but define data, as opposed to HTML which does nothing but present
data.

> Sure, you could have a more generic tool that let you map the values in
> certain tags to certain tools, but you'd have to create a "map" of some
> sort that explained which elements are mapped to which fields. Tools like
> this already exist... XSLT, which itself is a set of valid XML tags, is a
> language for transforming from XML to something else -- or a different
> XML.

So, one would use XSLT to translate data in XML to a more iSeries-friendly
format?

> The problem with XML is the more you learn, the more you'll find that you
> still don't know. :)

The hard truth, eh?

db