11. A digital processing system comprising: a processor; a random access memory (RAM); a non-transitory computer readable medium that stores one or more sequences of instructions to cause the system to populate a plurality of data structures of a software application written in a programming language, wherein each of said plurality of data structures contains corresponding fields, and the one or more sequences of instructions which when retrieved into said RAM and executed by said processor cause said system to: receive an input data, wherein said input data is according to eXtensible Markup Language (XML), wherein said input data contains a plurality of elements, and wherein each element has an associated value; receive a non-XML based schema, wherein said non-XML based schema contains a plurality of schema structures according to said programming language of said software application, wherein said plurality of schema structures specify a mapping of each of said plurality of elements to respective fields of said plurality of data structures; and set each of the fields of said plurality of data structures to values associated with an element specified by said mapping, wherein said plurality of data structures contains a first data structure with a first field, wherein said plurality of schema structures contains a first schema structure and a second schema structure, said first schema structure contains a mapping of a first tag text to said first data structure, said second schema structure contains a mapping of a second tag text to said first field, said first schema structure contains a link to said second schema structure to indicate that elements that have said second tag text are disposed within elements that have said first tag text, wherein to set each of the fields of said plurality of data structures to values associated with an element specified by said mapping, the system is further operable to: parse said plurality of elements to identify a hierarchical element that has said first tag text and a sub-element at a lower level, said sub-element is disposed within said hierarchical element and has said second tag text, said sub-element has a first value; and store said first value in said first field of said first data structure, in response to said identify.
15. The digital processing system of claim 11 , wherein said first schema structure specifies a number of sub-elements in said hierarchical element, said first schema structure contains a number of links equaling said number of sub-elements, each link points to a corresponding one of a third set of schema structures of said plurality of schema structures, said third set of schema structures correspond to sub-elements contained in said hierarchical element.