IBM Corp. this week
announced the release of two new XML technologies on its alphaWorks Web site.
The new tools, XML Enabler and XML Diff and Merge Tool, support the
emergence of open standards and the growth of e-business.
XML is currently being used in a a growing number of commercial and
Web-based applications. According to IBM, the technology is designed to
“make data interchange smarter,” meaning the data is easier to find,
categorize and customize by using tags which identify the information in a
document.
IBM’s XML Enabler is actually a servlet that uses the LotusXSL engine and
IBM’s XML4J parser to format XML data so it can be used in all of the
current browser types. This eliminates the need for Web developers to
concern themselves with browser compatibility issues.
The process works like this: A user sends a request to the servlet and
since the system administrator has already configured and mapped
stylesheets to match different browser types, the user has instant access
to XML documents, free from browser restrictions.
IBM’s XML Diff and Merge Tool is used to reconcile and understand the
changes in different versions of the same XML file. This enables the user
to choose the base version of an XML file and compare it with other
versions, identifying the differences in multiple versions.
