Software AG, one of the world’s largest software companies, will support XML, the new standard for defining the contents of documents and Web pages, in the future.

Software AG will support the XML (Extensible Markup Language) standard in its development environment, middleware and database products in the future; for this purpose, special text retrieval functionality for XML documents is planned.

As a page definition language, HTML controls only the outward appearance of a document and is inevitably blind to its contents. In contrast, XLM, which is derived from SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), also enables you to create definitions of content that apply across documents. XML can be used, for example, to define such content as prices, authors’ names, times and dates, keywords or share prices. To describe content like this, the syntax must be defined for the relevant application scenarios (for realtors, stock market services or publishers, say) in the form of a document type definition (DTD). This makes it possible to specify precise queries on the basis of the defined content-based criteria. The results of an analysis of documents or Web pages corresponding to an XML standard can then be edited directly in application programs. An application might, for example, independently read product or share prices from Web pages and then process them. It is also possible to create applications that use the contents of XML-based CAD files.

Its capacity for flexible adaptation to very different application areas, above all, makes XML an ideal universal interchange format with a great many potential areas of applications, ranging from electronic business to document management. Since XML is downward compatible with HTML, the transition to this new, extremely powerful markup language can be implemented on a step-by-step basis. The first XML-compatible browsers have already been announced.

Software AG’s product lines will offer broad-based XML support in the future. It will thus be possible to manage XML documents in database management systems and map XML to relational structures. EntireX, Software AG’s middleware product, will transfer XML documents as messages, and the development tools will permit to generate applications that create and edit data in XML format. The products Natural@Web, Adabas Web Retrieval and Adabas Web Gateway already provide XML functionality.

"Few people are probably aware at the moment that XML heralds a new era for the Web," according to Dr. Erwin Königs, Chairman and CEO of Software AG in Darmstadt. "As a universal interchange format, XML enables much closer integration of the Web, applications, document management and databases, which is particularly important to applications in the field of electronic business. Software AG will therefore be providing solid XML support at all levels."