XML support and characteristics
Native support is provided for XML as a message format. This support follows the recommendations of the W3C ("World Wide Web Consortium").
XML handling is located at three points in the Translation Configurator:
- Format selection. This is in the Choose File Formats dialog box.
- Format presentation: Input Message Format and Output Message Format panels.
- Path string generation: Input Message Format and Output Message Format panels.
XML users must be familiar with their actual runtime message structures, as with the other formats.
XML messages fall in to the HMD, or Hierarchical Message Data, category of message formats. The XML DOM, or Document Object Model, considers the elements of XML documents to fundamentally exist in parent/child tree relationships.
The full W3C recommendation for XML includes new organizational concepts, including:
- Conditionality: An XML message element may exist in a relationship with another contender element for the same location in the message.
- Infinite recursive constructs: A message element can refer to itself.
XML also recognizes a fixed sequential organization in which one message element must follow another message element within the message. It also generalizes the concepts of optionality and repeatability under the heading of cardinality.