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Working with XML

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This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a meta-markup language that provides a format for describing structured data. This facilitates more precise declarations of content and more meaningful search results across multiple platforms. In addition, XML enables the separation of presentation from data. For example, in HTML, you use tags to tell the browser to display data as bold or italic; in XML, you use tags only to describe data, such as city name, temperature, and barometric pressure. In XML, you use style sheets, such as Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) and cascading style sheets (CSS), to present the data in a browser. XML separates the data from the presentation and the process, making it possible for you to display and process the data by applying different style sheets and applications.

XML is a subset of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) that is optimized for delivery over the Web. It is defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This standardization makes sure structured data will be uniform and independent of applications or vendors.

XML, which provides a data standard that can encode the content, semantics, and schemata for a wide variety of cases ranging from simple to complex, can be used to mark up the following:

  • An ordinary document
  • A structured record, such as an appointment record or purchase order
  • An object with data and methods, such as the persistent format of an object or Microsoft® ActiveX® control
  • A data record, such as the result set of a query
  • Meta-content about a Web site, such as Channel Definition Format (CDF)
  • Graphical presentation, such as an application's user interface
  • Links between information and people on the Web

XML is simple, platform independent, and a widely adopted standard. The power of XML is that it separates the user interface from the structured data. This separation of data from presentation makes it possible for the integration of data from diverse sources. Customer information, purchase orders, research results, bill payments, medical records, catalog data, and other information can be converted to XML.

In This Section

  • Office Applications and XML
    The advent of the Internet has drawn attention to the fact that there is a great amount of information available in a wide variety of shapes and sizes — most of which is interesting, much of which is not available without a great deal of development effort. Sometimes, even the greatest effort has been unsuccessful in sharing the information across applications.
  • Working with XML in the Design Environment
    The XML Designer provides tools for working with XML files.
  • Writing Solid Code
    "Writing solid code" means writing Microsoft® Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code or script that performs as expected and is reusable, easy to understand, and easy to maintain.
  • Custom Classes and Objects
    If you have never used class modules to build custom objects before, this section covers the concepts that you must understand to design, build, and use custom objects with their own methods and properties.
  • The Windows API and Other Dynamic-Link Libraries
    One of the most powerful features of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is its extensibility. You can extend your applications by calling functions in the Microsoft Windows application programming interface (API) and other dynamic-link libraries (DLLs).