The ABL DOM interface

The Document Object Model (DOM) is the original application programming interface (API) for XML documents, as defined by the W3C. It continues to be the W3C recommendation.

Note: Develop with XML in OpenEdge provides a comparative introduction to the ABL DOM interface. See this content if you are currently evaluating which ABL features best meet your needs for handling XML documents in ABL applications.

A software module called an XML parser is used to read XML documents and provide access to their content and structure. The XML parser does its work on behalf of another software module—your application. ABL simplifies your interaction with DOM and its parser by providing the familiar ABL programming constructs of built-in objects, handles, attributes, and methods. The following topics describe the ABL objects that make up the DOM interface.

Note: The DOM API is designed to be compatible with a wide range of programming languages. In implementing DOM within the ABL, Progress Software Corporation adapted the specification to fit smoothly into the ABL environment. In some cases, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) naming conventions conflicted with familiar ABL naming conventions. In other cases, functionality in the DOM specification was already available in ABL. In all these cases, the established ABL naming and functionality was preserved.