XMLTree: XML Toolbox For Matlab
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Release 1.1, 2003/05/19
Written by:  Guillaume Flandin
             INRIA Sophia Antipolis - Epidaure
             2004 route des Lucioles - BP 93
             06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex - France
             email: Guillaume.Flandin@sophia.inria.fr
			 
About XMLTree
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XMLTree is an XML toolbox for Matlab (version 5.3 or later).
This package consists of a class xmltree, of XML-files examples
and of 3 scripts of demonstrations.

This toolbox contains an XML 1.0 processor (or parser), which aims
to be fully conforming. It is currently not a validating processor.
See http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml>
for details on XML.

This processor is encapsulated in a Matlab class allowing for the
manipulation of an XMLTree object through an object oriented way.
Several functions have been designed for this purpose. Look at the
examples scripts (xmldemo*.m) for a walkthrough of how to use the
xmltree class.

If you do not wish to use the whole class but are solely interested
in the XML parser, then you can only use functions that are in the
private folder of the class @xmltree/private: xml_parser.m and a
compiled version of xml_findstr.m.

Installation and Use
--------------------
Please refer to the file "INSTALL" for details.

Other Alternatives
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There are several ways to handle XML with Matlab. Here is a list of
them:

1) Matlab:
You can, of course!, use this toolbox XMLTree, which is implemented
in Matlab with just one mexfile to overcome some limitations in 
speed of the strfind.m function.
Peter Rydes鋞er also developped a toolbox called "XML Tools" that
imports XML strings and files to a Matlab struct array.
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/Files.jsp?fileId=1742

2) Java:
With the Java capabilities of the last versions of Matlab, you can
use Java's XML libraries. For example:
http://java.sun.com/xml/
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xml4j/
http://xml.apache.org/xerces-j/

3) ActiveX:
On Windows platforms, a solution is to use Microsoft's XML parser
through its ActiveX interface MSXML. More details:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml/

4) Mexfile gateway to a C/C++ library:
There are several C/C++ libraries available for free to parse XML
documents. A solution can be to write a mexfile calling routines
of the library. The most famous C libraries are:
Expat: http://www.jclark.com/xml/expat.html
libxml: http://xmlsoft.org/
In C++, the main libraries are:
http://xml.apache.org/xerces-c/
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xml4c/

5) Matlab 6.5:
The last release of Matlab (6.5 (R13)) comes with new functions to
parse XML files and working with the resulting Document Object Model
(DOM) representation: xmlread, xmlsave, ...
I do not have access to these functions however it seems that
Mathworks chose to use Java for this purpose with a Java class
called com.mathworks.xml.XMLUtils.

License Terms
-------------
Please refer to the file "LICENSE" for the terms.

Suggestions for improvement and fixes are always welcome, although no 
guarantee is made whether and when they will be implemented.

Guillaume Flandin
email: Guillaume.Flandin@sophia.inria.fr

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