Method and apparatus for monitoring and maintaining the consistency of distributed documents

摘要

A computer network comprising a plurality of terminals ( 1-4 ) connected via a communications network 5 is provided. In each of the terminals ( 1-4 ) application software ( 15 ) for generating XML source documents is provided. XML source documents created using the application software ( 15 ) are then sent to one of the terminals ( 4 ) having stored therein a consistency checker ( 10 ). The consistency checker ( 10 ) processes the source document together with a set of consistency rules ( 14 ) to generate an output presentation identifying data within the source documents which does or does not fulfil the requirements of consistency relationships defined by the consistency rules ( 14 ).