<h2>How is it built?</h2> 
<p>Since they were developed by several people with different skills and
interests, both code bases use a combination of free software/open source
programs.</p>

<p>The data processing pipeline looks like this:</p>

<ul>

<p>Data from http://www.parliament.uk (and now http://www.parl.gc.ca)/</p>

<p>is parsed by a Python script, which outputs XML.</p>

<p>The XML is loaded by a Perl script into a MYSQL database</p>

<p>PHP scripts present the information to end users and provide interactive
functions</p>

</ul>

<p>Because the MP and proceedings data is stored in XML between stages, it is <strong>available in a format suitable for use by other projects</strong>. The UK group already provides this data to research organizations.</p>