Integrating Portable XML Data with Portable C/C++ Code

Integrating Portable XML Data with Portable C/C++ Code: "Integrating Portable XML Data with Portable C/C++ Code
by Zhaoqing Wang & Harry H. Cheng
An embeddable C/C++ interpreter may be the answer for overcoming the limitations presented by writing XML-based applications with nonportable C/C++ code.
XML is changing the world of information sharing and exchange. The XML standard allows users to clearly define their own data and documents in an open, platform-, vendor-, and language-neutral manner for tasks such as electronic data interchange, data management, and publishing. Its self-describable flexible tags that mark the start and end of a related data block construct a hierarchy of related data objects called elements�which may be a database, pieces of a Web page (links, numbers, metadata, text and images), or contents of a spreadsheet. This structure makes data reusable, easy derivable, and reconfigurable because XML separates content and presentation with context encapsulation.
Because XML is a well-formed markup language, a programming technology is required in order to perform processing-related tasks such as parsing, generating, manipulating, and validating XML data. For that reason, C and C++ are commonly used for writing XML-based applications. However, either of those languages presents challenges�although C/C++ code is theoretically portable, the associated compilation and linking processes are not. Hence, most C/C++ code needs to be compiled and linked by different means on different platforms. C/C++ code that is truly portable is not generated and executed dynamically; therefore, in those situations Java and a Java Virtual Machine are commonly used for processing XML data."