Blog: W3C Launches XProc Spec

W3C Launches XProc Spec
eWeek (05/11/10) Taft, Darryl K.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has released XProc, an Extensible Markup Language (XML) pipeline specification for managing XML-rich processes. W3C says the specification "provides a standard framework for composing XML processes [and] streamlines the automation, sequencing, and management of complex computations involving XML." XML is used throughout enterprise computing environments because it provides a standard way to manipulate data. "What we haven't had is any standard way to describe how to combine [XML functions] to accomplish any particular task," says XProc specification co-editor Mark Logic. "That's what XProc provides." University of Edinburgh reader Henry Thomas says "XProc exemplifies what W3C does best: We looked at existing practice--people have been using a number of similar-but-different XML-based languages--and we produced a consensus standard, creating interoperability and critical mass." W3C notes that XProc features a test suite that covers all of the required and optional steps of the language as well as all the static and dynamic errors.

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