Internet Explorer

Viewing XML inside of Internet Explorer is very straightforward.  You can simply reference an XML document as a URL.  The XML document can be a file on a local drive or network or a URL to anyplace on the Internet.  Internet Explorer will display the XML document in its hierarchical format, allowing you to visually expand and contract nodes using your mouse.
While IE4 has support for XML, IE5’s support is far better.  It not only supports XML by displaying it, but it also fully supports the current W3C Document Object Model (DOM) specification.  IE4 cannot make that claim  (we will get into XML and DOM scripting later).  In fact, IE4’s XML scripting model is entirely different than IE5’s, which can be a real headache if you are a developer.  I highly recommend using IE5 if you are going to be creating browser based web applications using XML.

Tip:	Since IE4’s DOM model is very different than IE5’s (and 
	incompatible with each other), and IE5’s is compliant with 
	the W3C DOM standard, it is highly recommended that you use 
	IE5.

All of our examples will be shown using IE5.

File: Chapter 8\EmployeesWithDTD.xml in IE5.

IE5 does a pretty good job at checking for syntactical errors in the XML document, but it is certainly not a good Validity processor.  In fact, it all but ignores any DTD’s that you may have.

On the topic of DTD’s, IE5 does not show the DTD within the browser.  In fact, if you will look at the screen capture above, you will see that it makes reference to it, but refers you to the XML document source.

Warning:	Do not try to use IE5 as a validating parser.  Use the 
	other tools that we have mentioned to do all of your 
	checking for well-formedness and validity.

Other Browsers

There are other public domain and open source browsers that support XML as well, but they are typically more difficult to use and do not have a consistent set of features.  A good example of this is Mozilla.  While Mozilla is open source, which allows for implementation of any number of features, it can also have any number of bugs.  Just acquiring a complete copy of Mozilla can be a challenge since there are so many versions out there.  Since Mozilla is an open source solution, you may need to compile your own version of the browser.  This requires a C/C++ compiler and a lot of know how.  Be prepared to spend anywhere from half a day to half a week just getting your browser to working state.

If you are implementing new XML features that do not yet have a completed specification, Mozilla may be your best bet.  If you are going to deploy an XML solution to the Internet/Intranet, IE is the way to go… for now.  

Tip:	Use an open source XML browser solution for testing and 
	implementation of features and specifications that have not 
	been ratified by the W3C for general use.  Also use it to 
	check out cool stuff that people have added to the source 
	code.  Just don’t try to deploy with a non-production 
	browser.  Instead, use IE5 to deploy real-world solutions.  
	Whether you like Microsoft or not, they are currently the 
	only game in town.