1. A method comprising: creating, by a computer-based system for processing a document written in a markup language, a template document using the markup language, wherein the template document includes a set of tags associated with the markup language; parsing, by the computer based system, the template document to retrieve the set of tags; creating, by the computer-based system, a linkage data structure corresponding to a second programming language different from the markup language, wherein the linkage data structure includes a field for each tag in the set of tags retrieved by the parsing; generating, by the computer based system, program code in the second programming language based on the set of tags retrieved by the parsing, wherein the generating comprises: creating a procedure division statement in the second programming language, wherein the procedure division statement is capable of accepting a document written in the markup language, wherein the document is variable length, and wherein the procedure division statement is capable of returning a fixed format data structure corresponding to the linkage data structure, creating a second programming language section to contain the program code in the second programming language; producing by the procedure division statement and the second programming language section, the program code in the second programming language, wherein the program code is configured to extract, from the document written in the markup language, a plurality of tags associated with the markup language and at least one attribute associated with each tag; forming, by the computer-based system, an application programming interface (API) that includes the linkage data structure and the program code; and using, by the computer-based system the application programming interface (API) to pass content from one or more documents written in the markup language to a program element of a program written in the second programming language.