Using XML Schema for platform-neutral structure transfer

Abstract

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, very flexible text format, originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing. XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere[1]. XML’s design goals emphasize simplicity, generality, and usability over the Internet[2]. Although XML’s design focuses on documents, it is widely used for the representation of arbitrary data structures through the use of Schema. XML provides a widely adopted standard for representing text and data in a format that can be processed without much human or machine intelligence. Information formatted in XML can be exchanged across platforms, languages, and applications, and can be used with a wide range of development tools and utilities. Looking at the huge list of applications and advantages of using XML over proprietary relational databases for platform-neutral data representation, here is an attempt to study and evaluate the XML Schema representation of Microsoft Access 2003® and its ability to transfer all the properties of the table. Keywords: XML, Schema, XML converter, Microsoft Access 2003.

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