ECMAScript for XML

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ECMAScript for XML (E4X) was an extension to ECMAScript (which includes ActionScript, JavaScript, and JScript) to add native support for XML. [1] The goal was to provide a simpler alternative to the DOM interface for accessing XML documents. E4X added XML as a primitive data structure to allow for faster access[ clarification needed ] and better support within the language.

Contents

E4X was standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-357 standard. The first edition was published in June 2004 and the second edition in December 2005. However, the E4X standard was deprecated by the Mozilla Foundation in 2014, [2] and it was withdrawn by ISO/IEC in 2021. [1]

The first implementation of E4X was designed by Terry Lucas and John Schneider and appeared in BEA's Weblogic Workshop 7.0, released in February 2002.[ citation needed ] BEA's implementation was based on Rhino and released before the ECMAScript E4X spec was completed in June 2004.[ citation needed ]

Browser support

E4X is supported by Mozilla's Rhino, as well as by Tamarin, the JavaScript engine used in the Flash virtual machine.[ citation needed ] However, it is not supported by other common engines like Nitro (Safari), V8 (Google Chrome), Carakan (Opera), and Chakra (Internet Explorer and pre-Chromium Edge). [3]

E4X was supported by SpiderMonkey (used in Firefox and Thunderbird). However, E4X was deprecated in Firefox 10 [4] and eventually removed in Firefox 21. [5] [ clarification needed ]

E4X was supported by the OpenOffice.org software suite.[ citation needed ]

Example

varsales=<salesvendor="John"><itemtype="peas"price="4"quantity="6"/><itemtype="carrot"price="3"quantity="10"/><itemtype="chips"price="5"quantity="3"/></sales>;alert(sales.item.(@type=="carrot").@quantity);alert(sales.@vendor);foreach(varpriceinsales..@price){alert(price);}deletesales.item[0];sales.item+=<itemtype="oranges"price="4"/>;sales.item.(@type=="oranges").@quantity=4;

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 "ISO/IEC 22537:2006 Information technology – ECMAscript for XML: E4X specification". International Organization for Standardization. Retrieved 2024-08-17.
  2. ↑ "E4X – Archive of obsolete content – MDN". Mozilla. Archived from the original on 24 July 2014. Retrieved 10 September 2014.
  3. ↑ "Issue 30975: Implement E4X Support for scripts and extensions". Google. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
  4. ↑ "Firefox 10 for developers". Mozilla. Archived from the original on 5 May 2012. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
  5. ↑ "E4X". Mozilla. Archived from the original on 30 September 2013. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
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