XMLC : Java Glossary

XMLC (extensible Markup Language Compiler) is a servlet womb, part of Enhydra. It is not that well known. Its hey day was circa 2004. Its advantages are:

• Simplicity.
• Strict separation of code and HTML (Hypertext Markup Language).
• The markup is ordinary HTML, annotated only with ordinary ID tag attributes. This means the markup can be viewed perfectly inside a browser. This greatly aids mocking up with good fidelity.

The way in works is you insert ID tags in your HTML markup to show where the input/output fields are. You then run a utility to extract the tags and turn it into a Java class. You write your application accessing the fields as ordinary Java fields. If you spell something wrong, it will not compile. Your IDE (Integrated Development Environment) can help you find the tag names with the usual code completion features.

XMLC is not exactly a servlet container, but a great compiler to generate a representation of the HTML DOM (Document Object Model) which can be manipulated via code.