Why XML? Why not databases? 7

[jimmywages]

Hello everybody.

I'm new to XML and to be honest I haven't done much in XML other than the basic "your first XML document" kind of stuff. But as I was learning more and more about XML, it seemed to me to be redundant and even useless.

From what I read on the internet, it seems that XML is basically a text file that contained records. Well, why use XML? Why not just use databases if you want records of data!?!? I've used databases in collaboration with many HTML and Flash pages and it's worked great. It keeps the data seperate from the design AND it is searchable, query-able, etc. (is XML searchable and query-able? I don't know, please inform me).

Anyway, I just don't see the advantage of XML from a functional point of view. What can it do that databases can't? What is the fundamental difference of the two? Please enlighten me.

Thank you very much,

~jimmy.

 

[michel392]

Nick:

You said above: "The content is entered and stored into the database, which then publishes it's entire contents to a single xml file. "
Is there a database program which generates the XML code for a database, without someone have to worry about writing all the tags ?
For example, I use Visual FoxPro 6.0 to create a table/database of my inventory (PRODUCTS.DBF). Is it possible to automatically generate the XML file (PRODUCTS.XML) which contains my inventory itens ?

Michel