Need XML reader

Henry

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Mar 31, 2012, 8:46:30 PM3/31/12

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I'm running WinXP Pro SP3. Is there a free xml reader that will allow me to
read and save the contents of ItsDeductableData.xml from the TurboTax CD? I
tried googling for one but couldn't find one that would work. I notice the
release of XMLmind editor but I only want to read and save the contents of
the file to my hard drive so I think that's overkill. Also, is it free? I'm
very new to XML.

Thank you,

Henry

Martin Honnen

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Apr 1, 2012, 6:16:30 AM4/1/12

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What's an "xml reader" exactly? If you are looking for an XML editor
then XML is a text format so any editor supporting editing text files in
an Unicode format like UTF-8 or UTF-16 should suffice, although there
are certainly more comfortable ways these days with specialized XML
edtitors.
If you want to manipulate XML with a program then Win XP SP 3 has both
MSXML 3 and MSXML 6, Microsoft's COM based XML software packages
supporting DOM, XSLT and XPath 1.0 and can be used by a variety of
programming languages, the easiest the also built-in JScript and
VBScript, but also PHP with its COM automation support, classic VB, VBA
and others.
On the other hand the main development platform with Windows is the
Microsoft .NET framework. Based on that there is
http://xmlnotepad.codeplex.com/, aimed at people who want to edit XML
documents but not deal with XML syntax.

--

Martin Honnen --- MVP Data Platform Development
http://msmvps.com/blogs/martin_honnen/

Joe Kesselman

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Apr 1, 2012, 12:33:52 PM4/1/12

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What do you mean by an "XML reader"? What do you want to do with the data?

--
Joe Kesselman,
http://www.love-song-productions.com/people/keshlam/index.html

{} ASCII Ribbon Campaign | "may'ron DaroQbe'chugh vaj bIrIQbej" --
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Joe Kesselman

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Apr 1, 2012, 12:35:57 PM4/1/12

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And you certainly aren't beholden to Microsoft's tools. If you're
working in Java or in C/C++, the Apache parser/serializer/stylesheet
tools (Xerces and Xalan) are quite good. Similar tools/libraries are
available in most other programming languages these days.

Peter Flynn

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Apr 1, 2012, 7:04:52 PM4/1/12

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On 01/04/12 01:46, Henry wrote:
> I'm running WinXP Pro SP3.

You have my deepest sympathy :-)

> Is there a free xml reader

There is no such thing. XML files are just plain text, so you can use
Notepad or any decent plaintext editor.

As Martin has explained, if you wanted to modify the file, it's safest
to do it with the right software (an XML editor).

///Peter

BGB

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Apr 2, 2012, 12:40:07 AM4/2/12

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On 4/1/2012 4:04 PM, Peter Flynn wrote:
> On 01/04/12 01:46, Henry wrote:
>> I'm running WinXP Pro SP3.
>
> You have my deepest sympathy :-)
>

IMO, Vista was worse...

for a while I used WinXP-x64, before switching to Windows 7 x64.
FWIW, it was still better than Vista IMO... (even considering how "not
very good" WinXP-x64 was...).

>> Is there a free xml reader
>
> There is no such thing. XML files are just plain text, so you can use
> Notepad or any decent plaintext editor.
>
> As Martin has explained, if you wanted to modify the file, it's safest
> to do it with the right software (an XML editor).
>

yep.

Peter Flynn

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Apr 7, 2012, 5:24:35 PM4/7/12

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To follow up on this, Henry sent me the document, and it's a proprietary
binary format called TTFN.

The file is indeed named with a .xml extension, which looks like gross
carelessness, gross ignorance, or deliberate obfuscation on the part of
TurboTax.

///Peter

Joe Kesselman

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Apr 9, 2012, 4:12:56 PM4/9/12

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On 4/7/2012 5:24 PM, Peter Flynn wrote:
> To follow up on this, Henry sent me the document, and it's a proprietary
> binary format called TTFN.
>
> The file is indeed named with a .xml extension, which looks like gross
> carelessness, gross ignorance, or deliberate obfuscation on the part of
> TurboTax.

I suspect it's either carelessness, exhaustion -- there are only so many
three-letter acronyms, after all, and most of them are already in use by
some piece of software or other -- or, quite possibly, that the document
is in fact using the XML data model internally but has exported the file
in some compressed format, which may or may not be one of the various
"binary XML" representations that have bloomed and withered over the years.

I'm not going to look more closely; I seem to remember that the TTax
license had a "no reverse engineering" provision and I'm a firm believer
that the object of the game is to be as honest as the law allows.

japisoft

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May 7, 2012, 9:32:21 AM5/7/12

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http://free.editix.com

This is free XML Editor and you can use it as a reader / writer.

Best wishes,

Alexandre Brillant

"Henry" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
jl88h6$t8h$1...@dont-email.me...