Re: What is XML - and ....
 

XML a standard for raw syntax. It isn't a markup language; it's a shared
base for many markup languages, to facilitate writing tools which can be
reused across many or all of them.

In other words, it occupies much the same niche that SGML did. (HTML is
an SGML-syntax markup language.) You can think of XML as a modernized,
replacement for SGML -- sort of a "RISC" SGML, trimmed down to the
essentials and cleaned up for today's needs.


For your task of importing of the XML version of the Bible, what one
would normally do is grab one of the many XML parsers on the market
which deal with all the details of properly reading and interpreting the
syntax, and present the output either as an event stream (SAX) or an
in-memory data model (DOM). Then all you'd have to write is the code
which interprets the SAX events, or walks the DOM tree, selecting from
that the information you want to copy into your database.


For details beyond that, I'm going to hand you my standard pointer to
IBM's developerWorks site (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/),
where you will find many tutorials and articles ranging from basic to
expert. At the very least, that will give you enough background to ask
useful questions.

Welcome to the 21st century!

--
Joe Kesselman,
http://www.love-song-productions.com...lam/index.html

{} ASCII Ribbon Campaign | "may'ron DaroQbe'chugh vaj bIrIQbej" --
/\ Stamp out HTML mail! | "Put down the squeezebox & nobody gets hurt."

Re: What is XML - and ....
 

Oh, one other note: If you want to know more about what the markup in
your XML document actually _means_, you need to find out which XML-based
language was used. There may be comments, or a DTD (Document Type
Description) reference, or a Schema reference, at the top of the
document which will point you in the right direction to find more
information. If you aren't sure, ask whoever/wherever you got that
document from.

(BTW, note that some of the other great religious works of the world are
also available as XML documents; these were early test files for XML tools.)


--
Joe Kesselman,
http://www.love-song-productions.com...lam/index.html

{} ASCII Ribbon Campaign | "may'ron DaroQbe'chugh vaj bIrIQbej" --
/\ Stamp out HTML mail! | "Put down the squeezebox & nobody gets hurt."