Background
XML
XML is the eXtensible Markup Language, a way of encoding data in a file with markup that explains to readers what the data represents.
XML is a widely used standard for data exchange. The standard is maintained by the World Wide Web consortium. Many tools are available that allow software to read and exchange data in XML files.
Why XML
The eLandings system is focused on creating and receiving reports. It is primarily a rule based system, applying rules to reports to let the user know whether or not they are correct, rather than a workflow based system where documents are built up through many operations.
The use of XML provides both the eLandings development team and 3rd parties with many options in terms of tools. XML is language agnostic, and provides good interoperatability.
How XML is used in eLandings
The eLandings system uses XML documents as its primary data aggregate. The same XML format used by third parties to transmit landing reports to the system is used internally to pass reports between system components. This greatly increases the reliability of the XML rendering process. Data extracted from the database and rendered as an XML document is rendered correctly, because the entire system uses those XML documents and any bug introduced into this process is found and fixed quickly.
XML documents are not a system boundary, and don't require special boundary translation and testing.