>XML had alot of advantages when passing data from one system to another Jim. I used XML extensively recently to send data to and from Insurance carriers and to populate insurance forms. The insurance carriers send the data in xml format when they pass data to agencies denoting their customer's coverages, payments, endorsements, etc. It passes through a middle party for encryption and security purposes as well. We even used XML to store data in memo fields of a table that was used to populate pdf formfields for insurance documents. Most data was stored in SQL or VFP tables (parsed and put into fields) but many times the format was XML being passed to and fro and easily brought into VFP tables from the xml format or stored in any type of file (or memo field in a table) in xml format as well.

I know XML is very "useful", Tracy, and it's used quite extensively in the application I work on these days.

My issue was two-fold: first I wondered if "in XML" was thought to NOT be a 'local data store'. Seems to me it is one.
Second, I call it a "contrivance" because it isn't the "magic bullet" it was first touted to be. What it really is is more 'formalization' of what's been done with things like .CSV files in the past between applications. There's nothing magic about XML - both (or all) sides using a specific XML file have to know the field names and their precise definitions.

I just haven't seen XML change the world, which is the way it was first promoted. But it sure was successful at giving techies another good reason to adopt later versions of software and change their code to use it.

SNIP