Use XML Extensions to import and export XML documents to and from COBOL working storage. XML Extensions also has support for XSLT stylesheets, allowing you to apply XSLT transformations to the XML document during import, export, or a transformation from one XML document to another. Further support is provided for testing whether a document is well-formed (syntactically correct) or valid with respect to a provided schema document.
XML is the universal format for structured documents and data on the World Wide Web. Adding "structure" to documents facilitates searching, sorting, or any one of a variety of operations that can be performed on an electronic document.
XML Extensions has many capabilities. The major features support the ability to import and export XML documents to and from COBOL working storage. Specifically, XML Extensions allows data to be imported from an XML document by converting data elements (as necessary) and storing the results into a matching COBOL data structure. Similarly, data is exported from a COBOL data structure by converting the COBOL data elements (as necessary) and storing the results in an XML document.
XML Extensions runs on Microsoft Windows operating systems and selected UNIX platforms. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available. It requires
Visual COBOL version 2.2 or later.
Note:
- The term "Windows" in this document refers to Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, or Windows Server 2012 unless specifically stated otherwise.
- XML Extensions makes use of underlying XML parsers from other vendors. On Windows, development uses a specific version and service pack of Microsoft's MSXML, which is included with your installation. Microsoft will occasionally ship updates to a given version and service pack that either enhance security or fix problems. You can monitor their web site for the latest updates, although it might not be advisable to update to a higher version or service pack. Contact Micro Focus SupportLine to ensure that the update is necessary. On UNIX or Linux systems, XML Extensions links to specific libxml and libxslt libraries from the GNOME project for each release. It is not possible for the developer or end-user to upgrade these libraries.
In versions 2.3.1 and later, XML Extensions uses shared library (*.so) files on UNIX for libxml2/ libxslt/ libexslt. Thus, these may be updated to later versions, but again you should contact Micro Focus SupportLine to determine if the later version is necessary and supported.
