It is somewhat remarkable to think that this article, which appeared initially in the Winter 1997 edition of the World Wide Web Journal was out of date by the time the final XML Recommendation was approved in February. And even as this update brings the article back into line with the final spec, a new series of recommendations are under development. When finished, these will bring namespaces, linking, schemas, stylesheets, and more to the table.
This introduction to XML presents the Extensible Markup Language at a reasonably technical level for anyone interested in learning more about structured documents. In addition to covering the XML 1.0 Specification, this article outlines related XML specifications, which are evolving. The article is organized in four main sections plus an appendix.
This introduction to XML presents the Extensible Markup Language at a reasonably technical level for anyone interested in learning more about structured documents. In addition to covering the XML 1.0 Specification, this article outlines related XML specifications, which are evolving. The article is organized in four main sections plus an appendix.
What is XML?
XML is a markup language for documents containing structured information. Structured information contains both content (words, pictures, etc.) and some indication of what role that content plays (for example, content in a section heading has a different meaning from content in a footnote, which means something different than content in a figure caption or content in a database table, etc.). Almost all documents have some structure.
A markup language is a mechanism to identify structures in a document. The XML specification defines a standard way to add markup to documents.
XML is a markup language for documents containing structured information. Structured information contains both content (words, pictures, etc.) and some indication of what role that content plays (for example, content in a section heading has a different meaning from content in a footnote, which means something different than content in a figure caption or content in a database table, etc.). Almost all documents have some structure.
A markup language is a mechanism to identify structures in a document. The XML specification defines a standard way to add markup to documents.
