In the final project development cycle of Lycia II we introduced the XML interface for Lycia. This innovation makes data processing simpler and significantly decreases the developer's hand writing job. XML is a mark-up language for manage structured data in documents or data stores. This structured information usually contains both, the actual data headings which describe the meaning and role of the data. The mark-up language identifies the structure of the data store and the new Lycia 4GL extensions aid you in working with them.

The basic concept and structure of XML is very simple, but coding the routines which handle XML data in both directions was in the past rather time consuming and cumbersome. XML allows developers to retrieve and store clearly structured data for and from their own and other applications.

 The two main usage scenarios for XML processing in 4GL could be:

•    Reading and writing XML based configuration files.
•    Retrieving XML data and providing it for other (external) applications (i.e. Web Applications).
 

As one of Querix's major goals is to provide 4GL developers with a development solution which is open to all major databases, operating systems and programming languages i.e. by providing simple ways to exchange data or function interoperability, there is no surprise that we also include professional and still easy to use XML methods. Our newly integrated methods of XML data handling emphasize this mission due to the fact, that all major programming languages ( such as PHP, Java, ASP, .NET, C, C++, Perl, Python and others) support XML parser routines. It is also worth mentioning that XML is the endorsed industry standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and is supported by all leading software providers. Lycia's XML capabilities is your solution, if you want to profit from XML benefits but don’t want to waste months on additional coding - this tedious task can be easily handled within the Lycia development environment without any excessive efforts.
 

A set of new data types and methods for dealing with XML data allow the developer to create and parse XML data directly from 4GL without having to use additional tools and files. Both DOM and SAX standards can be used to process the data. DOM methods offer more flexibility and a wider range of features whereas SAX method offer the speed in processing ready XML documents. New XML interface is easy in use and will be a great help for the developers whose programs need to process vast amounts of information.