XML Basics - An Introduction to XML by Jan Egil Refsnes

XML Basics - An Introduction to XML

by Jan Egil Refsnes

What is XML?

• XML stands for EXtensible Markup Language
• XML is a markup language much like HTML.
• XML was designed to describe data.
• XML tags are not predefined in XML. You must define your own tags.
• XML is self describing.
• XML uses a DTD (Document Type Definition) to formally describe the data.

The main difference between XML and HTML

• XML is not a replacement for HTML.XML and HTML were designed with different goals:
• XML was designed to describe data and to focus on what data is.HTML was designed to display data and to focus on how data looks.
• HTML is about displaying information, XML is about describing information.

XML is extensible
The tags used to markup HTML documents and the structure of HTML documents are predefined. The author of HTML documents can only use tags that are defined in the HTML standard.

XML allows the author to define his own tags and his own document structure.

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