Starting, validating, and ending XML sessions

Whenever we use an external data source, regardless of its type, a connection needs to be established. Once we have consumed this data, the connection needs to be closed. Not only does this apply to Automation Anywhere but to most development platforms. How we make this connection is where things differ. Automation Anywhere refers to this connection as a session. We will create various types of sessions as we progress through this book. We created some sessions previously in this book, when we connected to CSV files. In the coming chapters, you will come across more sessions as we start working with databases, emails, and spreadsheets.

Since an XML file is an external data source, whether it be for input or output, a session needs to be established before we can do anything else with the data. Another benefit of having a specific session for each data source is that this allows you to work with multiple data sources simultaneously. Since...