Using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) As a Medium for Data Exchange

Communications of the Association for Information Systems Volume 9 Article 7 September 2002 Using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) As a Medium for Data Exchange Meg Murray Kennesaw State University, Follow this and additional works at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais Recommended Citation Murray, Meg (2002) "Using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) As a Medium for Data Exchange," Communications of the Association for Information Systems: Vol. 9 , Article 7. DOI: 10.17705/1CAIS.00907 Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol9/iss1/7 This material is brought to you by the AIS Journals at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been accepted for inclusion in Communications of the Association for Information Systems by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contact . Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 9, 2002) 105-119 105 USING THE EXTENSIBLE MARKUP LANGUAGE (XML) AS A MEDIUM FOR DATA EXCHANGE Meg Murray Department of Computer Science and Information Systems Kennesaw State University ABSTRACT The amount of information being collected and stored electronically continues to increase as does the need to share this data among disparate applications and non-compatible computer systems. The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) was introduced to meet this challenge by providing a standardized way to exchange data. XML is being adopted rapidly, and is positioned to thrive in the electronic marketplace. A main premise behind Microsoft's .Net strategy and the recent release of Sun’s J2EE platform is the belief that XML marks a turning point in the evolution of the Internet and computing architectures. The power behind XML is its simplicity; however there is still much confusion about this technology. XML will evolve as its structure, its strengths, its weaknesses, and how it can be used more effectively are better understood. This paper includes an overview of XML and XML specifications and corresponding components, technical implementation requirements, the development of schemas for defining industry standard data definitions, a scenario employing XML technologies, and a discussion of the potential impact of XML on information systems. KEYWORDS: XML, extensible markup language, data exchange, emerging technologies I. INTRODUCTION The amount of information being collected and stored electronically continues to increase as does the need to share this data among disparate applications and non-compatible computer systems. New methods are required to handle the storage, retrieval, presentation and exchange of this vast amount of information efficiently and effectively. The eXtensible Markup Language (XML), created in 1996, was designed to address this challenge. A primary objective behind XML was to extend the capabilities of Web technologies to include a standardized way to exchange data and yet be implemented easily with existing systems. XML is poised to be the next Internet standard for computer-to-computer exchange of data [Herman, 2001]. Consequently, the implications of XML permeate not only technology issues but also inter-business communications and industry standards for data exchange. Using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) as a Medium for Data Exchange by M. Murray 106 Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 9, 2002) 105-119 XML is part of a larger system known as SGML (Standardized Markup Language). SGML was introduced more then twenty years ago to provide a framework for deviceindependent representation of text in electronic form. The same international standardization body, the World Wide Web Consortium, known as W3C, that oversees the development of SGML also oversees the development of XML and HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the common language of Web pages. The role of the W3C, through its member organizations, is to lead efforts to standardize Web-based technologies [World Wide Web Consortium, 2000]. Much hype surrounds XML with predictions that XML will replace currently used Web technologies such as HTML and even Java. The truth is that while XML will transform various activities that take place over the Internet, XML is more of an enabling technology that complements existing tools. Currently, the primary role XML serves is that of a standard method for sending and exchanging information over the Internet. XML will evolve as its structure, its strengths, its weaknesses, and how it can be used more effectively are better understood. The power behind XML is its simplicity. XML separates data from its presentation and processing. There has been confusion about what this separation means. Usdin and Graham [1998] state that: “For all practical purposes, XML is also a philosophy of data identification and a host of languages and specifications for functions related to data” [p. 125]. The foundation of XML is a document that contains data embedded in tags that identify the data. Unlike other familiar markup languages, such as HTML, the tags within XML are created by the user. This ability means that XML may be customized to meet the needs of particular applications [Usdin and Graham, 1998]. A custom XML tag set allows users to identify information and manipulate the data in different ways depending on the need. Associated XML specifications continue to be defined to facilitate this manipulation of data. Three common specifications include: • • • the Document Type Defintion (DTD), the schema (discussed later) and the eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL). XSL is used to create stylesheets to render or present data contained in an XML document. XSL contains a set of rules that are used to build templates that specify how XML document data are to be formatted for display. XSL is still under development. Consequently, no browser currently in use fully supports XSL. The current approach is to use an XSLT processor to transform XSL stylesheets into HTML output. Other activities surrounding XML specifications are numerous. Some of the notable ones include • • • • Xlink and Xpoints that support multi-directional links and links to individual parts of a document, Xforms an enhancement to HTML forms, a Web services interface specification, SOAP an XML-based protocol for exchanging messages and Xquery which is an XML-based database query language. Interest in XML is high, but the newness of the technology and the evolving nature of XML standards means that a learning curve surrounds XML technologies. Even given these shortcomings, XML is fast becoming a transformational technology. XML is being adopted at a rapid rate and is being used in a variety of IT development projects. A main premise behind Microsoft's .Net strategy and the recent release of Sun’s J2EE platform is the belief that XML marks a turning point in the evolution of the Internet and computing architectures. While most expect that it will take a few years for XML to transcend th (...truncated)