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Internet Overview
XML stands for Extensible Markup Language and is a text-based markup language derived from Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).
XML tags identify the data and used to store and organize data, rather than specifying how to display it like HTML tags are used to display the data. XML is not going to replace HTML in the near but introduces new possibilities by adopting many successful features of HTML.
There are three important characteristics of XML that make it useful in a variety of systems and solutions:
XML is extensible : XML essentially allows you to create your own language, or tags, that suits your application.
XML separates data from presentation : XML allows you to store content with regard to how it will be presented.
XML is a public standard : XML was developed by an organization called the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and available as an open standard.
XML Usage
A short list of XML's usage says it all:
XML can work behind the scene to simplify the creation of HTML documents for large web sites.
XML can be used to exchange of information between organizations and systems.
XML can be used for offloading and reloading of databases.
XML can be used to store and arrange data in a way that is customizable for your needs.
XML can easily be mixed with stylesheets to create almost any output desired.
Virtually any type of data can be expressed as an XML document.
| not allowed character | replacement-entity | character description |
|---|---|---|
| < | < | less than |
| > | > | greater than |
| & | & | ampersand |
| ' | ' | apostrophe |
| " | " | quotation mark |
What is Markup?
XML is a markup language that defines set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. So what exactly is a markup language? Markup is information added to a document that enhances its meaning in certain ways, in that it identifies the parts and how they relate to each other. More specificcally, a markup language is a set of symbols that can be placed in the text of a document to demarcate and label the parts of that document.
Following is an example of how XML markup looks when embedded in a piece of text:
<message> <text>Hello, world!</text> </message>
This snippet includes the markup symbols , or you can call them tags and they are <message>...</message> and <text>... </text>. The tags <message> and </message> mark the start and end points of the whole XML fragment. The tags <text> and </text> surround the text Hello, world!.
Is XML a Programming Language?
A programming language is a vocabulary and syntax for instructing a computer to perform specific tasks. XML doesn't qualify as a programming language because it doesn't instruct a computer to do anything, as such. It's usually stored in a simple text file and is processed by special software that's capable of interpreting XML.