Why xml in a blog?

1

i have looked at many flash blogs and most of them use xml?

can’t the entries in a blog be read from a database using php and mysql?

also i have read many and many articles on the advantage of xml but was not particularly convinced. could you suggest some urls that really explain clearly as to why xml is necessary and used.

2

Yes. :slight_smile:
Foreword: I also dislike xml to the max, specially all the troubles you have to go thru to parse it in Flash (some components out there making it a bit easier…).

Question1: sure, they can, easily. The reason why they aren’t is that all those FlashBlogs, including my aggregator @ http://www.flasheyez.com/blogs/index.html rely on the html version (mostly PHP) which gets output to an xml document so any site can syndicate (show) it, coz it’s of a standard format called RSS => check these links:

  • http://blogspace.com/rss/specs
    -http://myrss.com/
    for more details on RSS…
    So these "normal " blogs just provide a link to a php file, which returns a standard xml document with “channels” in it (click on the XML link in any Blog to see this). As the structure of this document is standardized, it’s very easy to use a parsing routine for any/all Blogs you want to display in Flash, the rest is just cosmetics/display of the info.
    So you can now guess what the usefullness of xml is: it provides RAW data with no markup (font, table, bla bla) whatsoever, and this data can then be used in any app you want, all you need to do is retrieve it and then set up the presentation. Answers Q.2…
    It’s not necessary if you want to make some kind of a news system, db + php is just fine, but we’re talking Blog here, so XML it has to be!
    Check these also:
  • http://www.flashandxml.com/
  • http://www.flashapplications.info/
  • http://www.tupps.com/flash/faq/xml.html#6a
    best links there are on the subject…

Hope that clarifies it some…

3

ok what is a BOT? I usually see this word mentioned a lot.

4

Example URL?
Nromally, short for roBOT, like the spiders of searchengines…
Is this some kind of quizz?