Over the past decade or so, Extensible Markup Language (XML) has
become more widely used than ever before as a means of transferring data
between applications and even between organizations. XML provides a
standard protocol with which these applications and organizations can
communicate. Using XML Schema, a company can define a standard structure
for its data that can then be used across multiple departments and
organizations. This structured data enables developers to easily create
applications that can communicate with each other without much effort.
In addition, most organizations use forms in one way or another,
whether to enter a purchase request, submit expense report information,
or track weekly status. If you look at a typical form, you will notice that
the form itself is structured unlike a typical freeform document created
in an application such as Microsoft Office Word 2010. In these freeform
documents you can type anything you like in any way that you choose.
Although a form may contain sections that allow you to enter freeform text
such as comments, most of your typical forms are highly structured. Fields
in the form usually require you to enter specific types of data such as sales
numbers or costs. Since XML defines a structured data format (which can
contain some unstructured elements) and forms are highly structured with bits of freeform data, it makes sense to tie together forms and XML data.
Once a user has filled out a form that is connected to XML data, the data can
easily be incorporated into back-end processes that understand the structure
of the XML data for that form. So, this fits one of the main purposes of
XML—tying together multiple processes using a standard protocol.