If XML is the "new currency" for the Web, then Altova's XMLSPY is the money changer.
Long recognized as the premier tool for editing XML, the latest version, XMLSPY 2004, has raised the standard for Web tools.
XMLSPY is best known as an XML editor, but it can be used for much more, including validating XML, work with XML schemas, DTD (document type definitions) and transforming XML using XSL. XMLSPY 2004 is the latest release of the product and boasts a number of new features designed to make working with XML easier.
To start, the user interface has been extended to include context-sensitive helpers that can be used to complete XML statements and provide the structure for commonly used XML structures. You'll notice the difference as soon as you start to edit your first XML file. For example, if you create an attribute called In addition, the advanced find and replace, shown in Figure 2 is
also a valuable tool for modifying large XML files easily. You can
specify which type of XML text is replaced, so you won't accidentally overwrite the attribute contents or comments within your file when you really meant to change an element name.
XMLSPY 2004 makes it easy to see exactly what you are doing,
with a number of different "views" of your XML files, including a grid
view, design view, browser view, etc. In terms of a user interface for
XML development, you can't get much better than this. If you are still
editing and formatting XML files in notepad, then you don't know what
you are missing. The different views make it easier to see what the
resulting XML schema or file will look like and the built-in validation
keeps an eye on things so you don't end up with mal-formed XML.
In addition to user interface enhancements, XMLSPY 2004 has
also been tuned to work better with database development, including
enhanced support for most of the major database platforms, including:
Support is also available for databases accessed through ADO and
ODBC. This enhanced support means that you can point XMLSPY 2004 at a
particular database table or view and generate an XML schema based on
that table or view. We test this feature with a number of the supported
database platforms and it provided consistent results across the
platforms we tested, generating an XML schema that matched the
underlying database structure. This feature is particularly useful if
you need to transport data between database formats or applications, as
you can then use the resulting XML schema to do a mapping between the
source and target systems.
Oracle or Tamino XML Server, users will find that there is an
even tighter integration with these two platforms, with direct access
to features specific to the platform, including the ability to query
Tamino directly, general sample XML files and more.
Enhanced COM Visual Studio Developers who don't want to leave comfort of
their IDE might like the optional integration module that you can
download from the Altova Web site, but XMLSPY 2004 integrates as easily
with other development platforms, including Borland and open-source
environments. In fact, when you generate code using the API you will be
given the choice to open the code in a number of environments,
including Mono, which is an open source development environment for
creating .NET applications. This platform and vendor independence means
that XMLSPY is as well suited for a wide variety of developers who use
XML.
For developers who are developing or working with Web services,
there is also a set of SOAP tools built into XMLSPY 2004 which enable
the tool to interpret WDSL documents. You can also use XMLSPY 2004 as a
testing platform to creating and submit SOAP requests and then view the
SOAP response. There is also a SOAP debugger that you can use to track
down errors in your Web services and for most developers, this toolset
should provide everything you need to test and debug basic Web
services.
Another stand-out feature for developers in XMLSPY 2004 is the XML
differencing engine, which can be used to compare and combine separate
XML schemas or files. When working with multiple files, you can show
the differences between the two in a text or grid view and then merge
the two files together, with a number of options to ensure that the
structures you want are merged and everything else is not.
So in the end, if you work with XML or develop applications that use
XML in any shape or form, you should have a copy of XMLSPY. Already a
strong tool in previous releases, XMLSPY 2004 has raised the bar on XML
editing and integration and should save you development time and effort
when working with XML.
Figure 1: The XMLSPLY interface
Figure 2: Advanced find and replace options
For hard-core developers and code-monkeys, XMLSPY 2004 also
extends the development environment with an enhanced COM and Java API,
which enables developer to automatically generate Java, C++ and C# code
from an XML schema. In addition to automatically generating the
required code whenever you change a schema, you can also automatically
generate the documentation in Word or HTML format for your schema,
which can be a real time-saver.
Figure 3: SOAP Features
Figure 4: Differencing engine options
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