Special Edition Using XML, Second Edition

How Do Applications Use XML?

XML files by themselves are just as Word documents are by themselves—without an application in which to open and manipulate the contents of the file, there is not much point.

Using the data in an XML document requires applications that are capable of handling XML, such as browsers for viewing and displaying XML, and data-processing applications that can read XML files as well. The software component responsible for reading the XML document and building a representation of the document that can be accessed by other parts of an application is called an XML parser.

For example, consider a very simple XML document:

 <?xml version="1.0" ?> <contact> <name>Jane Doe</name> <address>123 Fake Street</address> <phone>312-555-1212</phone> ...