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XML Introduction - What is XML?

XML is designed to transmit and store data.

HTML was designed to display data.


We should master the basics

Before you continue to learn, we need to have a basic understanding of the following:

  • HTML
  • JavaScript

If you want to study these subjects first, please our home page to access these tutorials.


What is XML?

  • XML means Extensible Markup Language (EXtensible Markup Language).
  • XML is a markup language like HTML.
  • XML is designed to transmit data instead of displaying data.
  • XML tags are not predefined. You need to define your own labels.
  • XML is designed to be self-descriptive.
  • XML is a W3C Recommendation.

Differences between XML and HTML

XML is not a replacement for HTML.

XML and HTML are designed for different purposes:

  • XML was designed to transport and store data, its focus is on the content of the data.
  • HTML was designed to display data and to focus on the appearance of the data.

HTML is designed to display information, while XML is designed to transmit information.


XML does not do anything

Maybe it's a bit difficult to understand, but XML does not do anything. XML was created to structure, store and transmit information.

The following examples are Jani Tove of written notes, stored as XML:

<note>
<to>Tove</to>
<from>Jani</from>
<heading>Reminder</heading>
<body>Don't forget me this weekend!</body>
</note>

The above article notes that self-descriptive. It contains the sender and recipient information, in addition to the title and the message body.

However, the XML document is still not doing anything. It is merely wrapped in XML tags of pure information. We need to write a piece of software to send, receive and show this document.


You can invent your own by XML tags

In the above example the label is not defined (such as <to> and <from>) in any XML standard. These tags are the creators of XML documents invention.

This is because the XML language has no predefined tags.

HTML tags are used in predefined. HTML documents can only use defined in the standard HTML tags (such as <p>, <h1>, etc.).

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


XML is not a replacement for HTML

XML is a complement to HTML.

XML does not replace HTML, it is important to understand. In most Web applications, XML is used to transmit data, while HTML is used to format and display the data.

For XML is best described as:

XML is independent of hardware and software information transfer tool.


XML is a W3C Recommendation

XML on February 10, 1998 to become a W3C Recommendation.

For more information about the W3C XML activity, please visit our W3C tutorial .


XML is everywhere

Currently, XML on the Web are not inferior to the role as the Web has been a cornerstone of HTML.

XML is the most commonly used tools among various data transmission applications.