What is XmlPL?

XmlPL is a programming language which provides built-in features for XML processing integrated with a C-like syntax. Among these features are XML path expressions and XML statements.

XmlPL grew out of frustration with the inefficiencies and over complicated nature of existing methods for XML manipulation such as XSLT, XQuery, and API approaches like DOM and SAX. XmlPL overcomes many of the problems with these approaches by treating XML as a native data type, integrating path expressions with a C-like syntax and compiling rather than interpreting to create an intuitive and efficient XML processing language.

If you know Java, C or C++ and XPath then XmlPL is very easy to learn. Since XML is a native data type it can be processed more naturally and efficiently using XML path expressions and inline XML.

XmlPL is not intended to be a general purpose language. It does aim to be an efficient language for general purpose transformation, interpretation, generation and augmentation of XML data. XmlPL may also be used as an interface between XML data and other programing languages.

Status

XmlPL is currently in the alpha release stage. This means that there are some known bugs and likely some unknown bugs. However, XmlPL has been in development and real world use since 2003. I hope you will find it useful.

If you run in to problems please email bugs@xmlpl.org with an explanation of your problem, the machine and operating system use are using, the XmlPL code you are compiling and any error messages you encounter.

Features

• Open-Source software. GPL for free. BSD for a fee.
• Supports inline XML data
• Uses an XML path language, similar to XPath, integrated with a C like syntax
• Provides advanced features for XML stream manipulation
• Gives the developer control over XML DOM memory usage
• Garbage collected
• Compiles to C++ for high portability and fast execution
• Easily extended with libraries and native code blocks