4. Within a system comprising a processor and a memory, a method of processing an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document, the method comprising: loading, via the processor, an execution plan into a virtual machine and storing the execution plan in a memory, wherein the virtual machine consists of XML processing functions and the execution plan represents an XML schema; selectively invoking, via the processor, XML processing functions available within the virtual machine according to the execution plan, wherein the XML processing functions operate upon an XML document conforming to the XML schema represented by the execution plan; selectively invoking, via the processor, a de-serialization module according to the execution plan, wherein the de-serialization module is configured as a plug-in of the virtual machine and de-serializes at least one item of information from the XML document; and outputting the de-serialized item of information to the memory.
4. Within a system comprising a processor and a memory, a method of processing an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document, the method comprising: loading, via the processor, an execution plan into a virtual machine and storing the execution plan in a memory, wherein the virtual machine consists of XML processing functions and the execution plan represents an XML schema; selectively invoking, via the processor, XML processing functions available within the virtual machine according to the execution plan, wherein the XML processing functions operate upon an XML document conforming to the XML schema represented by the execution plan; selectively invoking, via the processor, a de-serialization module according to the execution plan, wherein the de-serialization module is configured as a plug-in of the virtual machine and de-serializes at least one item of information from the XML document; and outputting the de-serialized item of information to the memory. 10. The computer-implemented method of claim 4 , wherein selectively invoking XML processing functions further comprises selecting an XML processing function that reads a section of the XML document according to an expected component type of the section.