Abbreviation for extensible Markup Language is not a declarative markup language like HTML; instead, it is a language for creating markup languages.XML is maintained by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C). A slimmed-down version of SGML enables Web authors to create and name their tags so that they can more accurately capture the structure of their data.
In a well-structured document that complies with syntax rules, the user-created tag hierarchy can be read and processed by an XML-aware browser, even if it has never encountered the specific tag set before. Authors can state their document’s structure more formally using a Document Type Definition (DTD), which specifies the rules for using each tag correctly. See CSS, XLink, Namespaces, Query Language, XMLP, XPointer, XSL.
Technipages Explains XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a mark-up language that bridges the gap of formatting of documents between humans and machines. XML includes structured data in a text file in a text file. XML allows its users to create a vocabulary and use the same vocabulary to describe data. XML uses tags (“<” and “>”) to create files that are easy to generate by a computing machine.
Usually, most machines that process structured data store the data on disks from which they can only be used in either a binary format or text format. XML makes it possible for a user to access the data without having to access the software used for generating it. Example of structured documents would include contracts, letters, articles, address books, spreadsheets, technical drawing, financial transaction, memos amidst many others.
XML is currently being developed World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) under the supervision of an XML Working Group, it was initiated in the year 1996, XML being a product of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language). The intention being to make SGML easier and also due to the success of HTML which was written in the late 1990s by a CERN physicist Tim Berners Lee. XML is an extension of HTML.
Common Uses of XML
- XML is a recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium, and the development of the specification is being supervised by an XML working group.
- The reason why you can open XML files with several different programs is because it stores data in plain text.
- Some of the programs that can open XML files are window notepad, any text editor or even any web browser
Common Misuses of XML
- XML was never meant to tackle any problem the SGML created, and it was a mark-up language of its own
- The recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) of XML is not being supervised by any XML affiliated group