Summary

As I've demonstrated in this chapter, XML can be easily integrated with database-driven applications and represent relational data. The inherent hierarchy of XML fits in very well with the relational database model. In addition, because XML is plain text, it can easily be transferred between two applications on different platforms (for example, Microsoft Windows and Linux) written in different languages (for example, Perl and Java). This chapter illustrates the power of XML ”it is platform and language independent and can easily be used as the common middleware format when converting or working with two or more foreign data types.