Chapter 40. Integrating PHP and XML
XML is one of the hottest buzzwords in the software business today; but what does it mean for Joe or Jane Average PHP Developer? Well, it could very well be the necessary precondition for a better Internet — one that is faster to develop, more interactive, less junky, and more accessible to a larger audience. With PHP, you're already in an excellent position to smoothly integrate XML into your web development arsenal as the technology matures.
What Is XML?
XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. XML is a form of SGML, the Standard Generalized Markup Language, but you don't need to know anything about SGML to use XML. It defines syntax for structured documents that both humans and machines can read.
Note
Our explanation of XML will necessarily be extremely brief (because this is a book about PHP rather than XML). For those who want to learn more, we highly recommend Elliotte Rusty Harold's XML 1.1 Bible, Third Edition (Wiley, 2004). Although this book is neither short nor a specific guide to programming XML-based applications, it will give you a firm conceptual grasp of XML that should set you up nicely for any particular XML-based task.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand XML is to think about all the things HTML can't do. HTML is also a markup language, but HTML documents are anything but structured. HTML tags (technically known as elements) and attributes are just simple identification ...
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