What is XML?

What is XML?
XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language and it is used for storing and transferring data. XML is used to send, receive or store data in any programing language and on any Operating System.

XML Example
To give you an idea how XML document looks like, take a look on the below XML Example. We have 3 tags in the below example: <to>, <from>, <msg> In this example we used XML to store the sender and recipient address in addition to message body. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <message> <to>MyFriend</to> <from>Sender</from> <msg>This is XML Course</msg> </message> The XML document starts with a line called XML prolog <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> XML Main Properties
1. XML is a markup language that focuses on data rather than how the data looks.
2. XML is designed to send, store, receive and display data. In simple words you can say that XML is used for storing and transporting data.
3. XML became a W3C (W3C stands for World Wide Web Consortium, the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web) recommendation on February 10, 1998.
4. XML is different from HTML. XML focuses on data while HTML focuses on how the data looks.
5. XML does not depend on software and hardware, it is platform and programming language independent.
6. Unlike HTML where most of the tags are predefined, XML doesn’t have predefined tags, rather you have to create your own tags.

Why we need XML?
Since there are systems with different-different operating systems having data in different formats. In order to transfer the data between these systems is a difficult task as the data needs to converted in compatible formats before it can be used on other system. With XML, it is so easy to transfer data between such systems as XML doesn’t depend on platform and the language. XML is a simple document with the data, which can be used to store and transfer data between any systems irrespective of their hardware and software compatibilities.

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