D1J1T Article Categories:

Programming   Management   Development   Design   HTML   JavaScript   CSS   PHP   MySQL   Database   Server   Audio   Object-oriented Programming   Hosting   Mobile   Social Networking   Java  

XML (eXtensible Markup Language)

Extend Yourselves!

by D1J1T — in Programming — Updated: Feb 9, 2015 at 1:54 pm

The goal of this article is to provide a simple overview of the features of XML.

If you aren't already familiar with HTML, be sure to read that overview first. XML has similar "tag" syntax like HTML, though it allows users to create their own tags. It does not replace HTML however.

XML has the sole purpose of structuring and allowing data to be delivered on many different systems by many various applications. That's it. By itself, it is almost useless. Combined with other languages and technologies, it can take the place of a database even and allow for easy access to different sub sections of information based on a specific item (node). It can render the same specific data, on a different device, using a different application. Or, to use an example from my experience, to allow for the same application to function for multiple languages.

Can I use XML instead of HTML?


No. Think HTML to define a web page's structure, XML to structure the actual data, as a database might. Here's an example of a simple XML document containing "nodes" (a root, and children) with the first line as the XML declaration: (Note that most XML documents these days will use an XML schema.)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<musicstore>
<mediadisc>
<artist>Pink Floyd</artist>
<album>Dark Side of the Moon</album>
<genre>Progressive Rock</genre>
</mediadisc>
</musicstore>


If you find these articles to be helpful, I could always use another cup of coffee! Social media likes/+1s are also much appreciated. Thanks for reading!

Add Comment to Post: