Five Technologies of XML/EDI

SGML has formed the basis of many of the large, multinational, documentation projects that have developed in the decade since its publication. It also formed the basis for the formalisation of the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) that led to the formation of the World Wide Web of documentation that has become available on the Internet.

Key to the success of HTML was the development of the concept of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that allow users to identify the source of each piece of shared data in a consistent manner. Whilst the original concept has limitations as to the granularity of data access, its universality has greatly improved computer to computer communications.

In July 1996 the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) set up a working group to study how SGML could be simplified to allow for its efficient use over the Internet. The result was the development of an Extensible Markup Language (XML) that combined the expressive power of SGML with the Internet aware functionality of HTML.

XML provides an ideal methodology for electronic business because:

XML allows message type creators to clearly identify the role and syntax of each piece of interchanged data using a definition that is both machine processable and human interpretable

XMLallows message type creators to identify the source of each shared structure using an Internet Uniform Resource Locator

XML allows message type creators to optionally identify which pieces of information should occur in each interchanged set of data and, where relevant, the order in which individual fields should occur in a particular message stream

XML documents can be given metadata fields that can be used to identify who is responsible for creating, transmitting, receiving and processing each message, and can have built in facilities for identifying the storage points of programs that should be used to control processes

XML can make use of facilities provided by the latest version of the Internet HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which can identify when a message should be moved from one stage of the interchange process to another, and to check that the relevant forms of interchange have taken place.

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