Faq

The XML weather bulletins on this site are designed to be used by information systems (computers). Please consult your Information Technology divisions / sections / units on how to integrate weather information provided by this site into your systems. Information embedded in the XML weather bulletins can also be found at HKO Internet web site (https://www.weather.gov.hk/) in a human readable form.

The XML weather bulletins in this web site are provided in "real-time", in the sense that they are updated as timely as they are disseminated to other channels such as the media. You can develop computer programs to poll the weather bulletins from this web site and make use of the weather information in the XML files. Some possible applications include:

• Displaying weather information on your web site.
• Displaying the weather situation in the information kiosk at the entrances of premises.
• Sending out Short Messages (SMS) to staff on field upon issuance of certain weather warnings.

The XML has many advantages over the traditional encoded data method. Some of them include:

• The formats are standardized so programmers spend less time on understanding them; and
• Software packages for manipulating XML are widely available and therefore application programs need not be written from scratch.

Furthermore, the XML weather site is simple to use. Programmers who have basic understanding in XML should have already acquired the skill to write useful and effective programs to handle the data.

XML documents can be easily converted into any other formats by applying eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) on the documents. An online tutorial on XSL can be found at https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xsl_languages.asp.

XML Schemas define the structure of the XML documents and can be used to validate XML documents. An online tutorial on XML Schema can be found at https://www.w3schools.com/xml/schema_intro.asp.