What is XML?

XML is a software- and hardware-independent tool for storing and transporting

data. It is a markup language for organizing information in text files.

XML stands for EXtensible Markup Language

XML is a markup language much like HTML

XML was designed to store and transport data

XML was designed to be self-descriptive

XML is a W3C Recommendation

XML is a meta mark-up language as it allows to create our own markup

languages.
XML is a way of marking-up data, adding metadata, adding attributes and
separating structure from formatting.

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.

CHARACTERISTICS OF XML:

XML provides a basic syntax that can be used to share information between different kinds of
computers, different applications, and different organizations. XML data is stored in plain text
format. This software- and hardware-independent way of storing data allows different
incompatible systems to share data without needing to pass them through many layers of
conversion. This also makes it easier to expand or upgrade to new operating systems, new
applications, or new browsers, without losing any data.

With XML, your data can be available to all kinds of "reading machines" (Handheld
computers, voice machines, news feeds, etc.), and make it more available for blind people,
or people with other disabilities.

XML provides a gateway for communication between applications, even applications on

wildly different systems. As long as applications can share data (through HTTP, file sharing,
or another mechanism), and have an XML parser, they can share structured information that
is easily processed. Databases can trade tables, business applications can trade updates,
and document systems can share information.

It supports Unicode, allowing almost any information in any written human language to be
communicated.

It can represent common computer science data structures: records, lists and trees.

Its self-documenting format describes structure and field names as well as specific values.

The strict syntax and parsing requirements make the necessary parsing algorithms
extremely simple, efficient, and consistent.

Content-based XML markup enhances search ability, making it possible for agents and
search engines to categorize data instead of wasting processing power on context-based
full-text searches.

XML is heavily used as a format for document storage and processing, both online and
offline.

It is based on international standards.

It can be updated incrementally.

It allows validation using schema languages such as XSD and Schematron, which makes
effective unit-testing, firewalls, acceptance testing, contractual specification and software
construction easier.

The hierarchical structure is suitable for most (but not all) types of documents.

It is platform-independent, thus relatively immune to changes in technology.

Forward and backward compatibility are relatively easy to maintain despite changes in DTD
or Schema.

Its predecessor, SGML, has been in use since 1986, so there is extensive experience and
software available.

APPLICATIONS OF XML :

Web publishing: XML allows you to create interactive pages, allows the customer to
customize those pages, and makes creating e-commerce applications more intuitive.
With XML, you store the data once and then render that content for different viewers or
devices based on style sheet processing using an Extensible Style Language (XSL)/XSL
Transformation (XSLT) processor.

Web searching and automating Web tasks: XML defines the type of information
contained in a document, making it easier to return useful results when searching the
Web:
For example, using HTML to search for books authored by Tom Brown is likely to return
instances of the term 'brown' outside of the context of author. Using XML restricts the
search to the correct context (for example, the information contained in the <author>
tag) and returns only the information that you want. By using XML, Web agents and
robots (programs that automate Web searches or other tasks) are more efficient and
produce more useful results.

General applications: XML provides a standard method to access information,

making it easier for applications and devices of all kinds to use, store, transmit, and
display data.

e-business applications: XML implementations make electronic data interchange

(EDI) more accessible for information interchange, business-to-business transactions,
and business-to-consumer transactions.

Metadata applications: XML makes it easier to express metadata in a portable,

reusable format.

Pervasive computing: XML provides portable and structured information types for
display on pervasive (wireless) computing devices such as personal digital assistants
(PDAs), cellular phones, and others. For example, WML (Wireless Markup Language)
and VoiceXML are currently evolving standards for describing visual and speech-driven
wireless device interfaces

DOMAIN LANGUAGES:

1. Chemical Markup Language: With CML, chemists can create and publish
molecule specifications for easy interchange.
2. Mathematical Markup Language: Using MathML, you can display equations
and all kinds of mathematical terms.
3. Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language: SMIL attempts to fix a
problem with modern "multimedia" browsers. Usually, such browsers can handle
only one aspect of multimedia at a timevideo, audio, or imagesand never
more than that. SMIL lets you create television-like fast cuts and true multimedia
presentations by letting you specify when various multimedia files are played.
4. XHTML: W3C introduced XHTML to bridge the gap between HTML and XML,
and to introduce more people to XML. XHTML is simply an application that
mimics HTML 4.0 in such a way that you can display the resultstrue XML
documentsin current Web browsers.
5. Vector Markup Language: Using VML, you can draw many vector-based
graphics figures
6. Extensible Business Reporting Language: Using XBRL, you can codify
business financial statements in a way that makes it easy to search them and
review them quickly, extracting the information you want. Extensible Business
Reporting Language (XBRL, formerly named XFRML) is an open specification
that uses XML to describe financial statements.
7. Resource Description Framework: Resource Description Framework (RDF) is
an XML application that specializes in metadatathat is, data about other data.
You use RDF to specify information about other resources, such as Web pages,
movies, automobiles, or practically anything. Using RDF, you create vocabularies
that describe resources. For example, the Dublin Core is an RDF vocabulary that
handles metadata for Web pages
8. Scalable Vector Graphics: Using SVG, you can draw two-dimensional graphics
using markup. Its similar to VML, the only difference is that SVG can draw scalar
graphical figures whereas VML draws vector graphics.