Sun Leads Attempt To Create XML API

The Extensible Markup Language saw a ground swell of vendor support this week, starting with Sun Microsystems, which said it is working on an XML extension to the Java platform.

Separately this week at the XTech conference in San Jose, Calif., IBM, Candle Corp. and Netscape also unveiled XML initiatives.

Sun, noting that several vendors already have offered their own Java-to-XML parsers, said it would seek to create a standard Java API for XML.

"There are a lot of [XML] APIs," said Nancy Lee, Sun's senior product manager for XML. According to Lee, the goal is to create a standard API for working with XML data that would be implemented as a Java extension. All the parsers created by various vendors would then work with that API. She said this will simplify how XML programmers work with Java and how Java programmers work with XML.

Sun views Java and XML as beautifully paired technologies: Java as the platform-neutral way for delivering applications; XML as the platform-neutral way to represent content.

Sun's initial version of the XML extension includes basic functionality, such as the ability to read, manipulate and generate XML data streams and formats. It is based on the 1.0 spec and on the W3C's Document Object Model (DOM) spec, as well as the Simple API for XML (SAX) de facto standard for event-based XML document processing.

In the coming weeks, Lee said, an expert group will produce a draft specification for consideration by the Java Platform Group, which was formed last May within Sun to create Java standards and reference implementations.

The benefits of standards are clear. "Developers won't need to build these classes themselves, and XML documents won't be as bulky as they might be because we won't need to include these classes in the application code," said Anne Thomas, a consultant at the Patricia Seybold Group.

For Netscape, XML is "key" to its e-commerce strategy. The company said it would integrate XML into its CommerceXpert line of transaction, business process and catalog applications.

IBM said it has 500 developers working on XML technologies, such as Xeena, a Java app that provides a visual interface for creating and editing XML documents.

Candle Corp. showed off XML support within its Roma middleware product, providing application integration between an XML-enabled PeopleSoft application and a non-XML application. The flow of these distributed applications was enabled by IBM MQSeries and tracked via the Roma Application Manager.