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5. Applications

This section shows how to use webMathematica in a number of specific applications.

5.1 XML

XML is a general data format that is becoming increasingly important. Data that is formatted in XML can readily be

used by applications that are able to process it. In this case the choice of an XML format means that you will save

considerable development effort. In addition there are an increasing number of existing data formats that use XML.

Some of the more important for mathematical and scientific purposes include XHTML (an XML compliant version

of HTML), MathML (a way to store mathematical information), and SVG (a graphics format). A large list of XML

applications is available at http://www.xml.org/xml/registry.jsp.

Mathematica 4.2  introduced  a  large number  of features for working with  XML, all of which  are available  in web 

Mathematica 2.0. XML can be very useful for webMathematica with its support for specific XML applications and

as  a  general  format  for  data  interchange.  The  use  of  MathML,  SVG  and  XHTML  will  be  covered  in  their  own

sections. This section will give an overview to XML and the XML features of Mathematica. It will also give some

examples of why this functionality is useful to webMathematica.

5.1.1 Introduction to XML

This section will give a very brief introduction to XML. For more information go to one of the many references such

as those detailed at http://www.w3.org/XML/, for example, http://www.w3.org/XML/1999/XML in 10 points. 

A sample XML document is shown below:

Stephen Wolfram

J.R.R. Tolkien

In the example above we see a data format for a library. The library contains books and each book has a title and an

author. This shows how XML is suitable for structured data. In addition we see how XML looks a little like HTML,

except that the tags (words bracketed by  <  and  > ) are not restricted to a fixed set since new tags can be introduced

that  are  suitable  for  a  particular  application.  Unlike  HTML,  the  format  of  the  XML  is  stricter  with  a  valid  XML

document being required to follow rules that do not apply to HTML. This is demonstrated in the 

next section

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