HTML display of Order data

Consider a purchase order application. Customers submit orders, which are identified by a Date and the CustomerID, and which list one or more items, each of which has an ItemID, ItemName, Quantity, and units.

The data for such an order might be displayed on a screen as follows:

ORDER

Date: July 4, 1999

Customer ID: 123

Customer Name: Acme Alpha

Items:

Item ID

Item Name

Quantity

987

Coupler

5

654

Connector

3 dozen

579

Clasp

1

This data indicates that the customer named “Acme Alpha,” whose Customer Id is “123”, submitted an order on 1999/07/04 for couplers, connectors, and clasps.

The HTML text for this display of order data is as follows:

<html>
<body>
<p>ORDER
<p>Date:&nbsp;&nbsp;July 4, 1999
<p>Customer ID:&nbsp;&nbsp;123
<p>Customer Name:&nbsp;&nbsp;Acme Alpha
<p>Items:</p>
<table bgcolor=white align=left border=”3” 
	cellpadding=3>
<tr><td><B>Item ID&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</B></tr>
	<td><B>Item Name&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</B></tr>
	<td><B>Quantity&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</B>
	</td></td></tr>
<tr><td>987</td>
	<td>Coupler</td>
	<td>5</td></tr>
<tr><td>654</td>
	<td>Connector</td>
	<td>3 dozen</td></tr>
<tr><td>579</td>
	<td>Clasp</td>
	<td>1</td></tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

This HTML text has certain limitations:

This merging of data and formatting, and the lack of strict phrase structure, makes it difficult to adapt HTML documents to different presentation styles, and makes it difficult to use HTML documents for data interchange and storage. XML is similar to HTML, but includes restrictions and extensions that address these drawbacks.