Definition of XML

Definition: XML is an acronym for eXtensible Markup Language. It is

• A human readable way of describing structured data.
• A human readable way of describing data.

XML is made up of tags enclosing text like this.

<dataset>
<record>
<name>David</name>
<age>47</age>
</record>
</dataset>

It is similar in structure to HTML, the language of web pages but contains no presentation information and is very strict about closing off tags.

XML is used increasingly for config data and data transfer as it is more of a standard. XML parsers exist for most platforms and have been written in many computer languages. On Win 32 the Microsoft XML parser is provided as an COM component.

Glossary:

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