Patent ID: 7296263

Claim:
A method for using an extensible markup language (XML) stream for at least one of operating on and using data in which the XML stream is defined according to a an XML schema, comprising: providing an XML stream with one or more portions defining a restrictive set of arithmetic operations that may be performed on data wherein the restrictive set of arithmetic operations include operative steps defined in an XML schema, wherein the operative steps comprising one or more of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; incorporating an operation that includes at least one of the operative steps into an XML stream that conforms to the XML schema; passing the XML stream to an operation parser, the operation parser performing processes including: receiving the XML stream; receiving the data; applying the restrictive set of arithmetic operations included in the XML stream to the data to reduce the overall amount of content included in the data; and output a result of applying the XML stream to the data as modified data.