"You can't just import an XML file and magically have it available to your program. You have to first put it through some sort of transformation, which requires work that is unnatural or unwieldy."I wonder if you have used a tool called Data Junction? Our software has had XML support for a few years now (ok, so I work there) and even novices can map XML documents to and from any other format, including automation objects (ActiveX and Java). I don't intend to spam your column but just that I was taken aback by the use of the terms unnatural and unwieldy. If that is truly the case, then I must fall into the chest-beating technologist category the precursor article described -- because I have been creating and parsing XML documents with ease since the anti-climatic Y2K... and I have only the most rudimentary of programming skills.
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Data Junction is proprietary software -- not a standard API such as SAX or DOM. Also, what you describe is only feasible for simply structured XML -- such as results from database table dumps or object serialisations. Try it with Docbook or XHTML!
This was first published in February 2003
