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XML. Alyssa Roberts. What is XML?. Extensible Markup Language Specification to creating custom mark-up languages Simplified version of SGML, originally made for people with semantic constraints Extensible – allows user to define mark-up elements SGML – Standard Generalized Markup Language.
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XML Alyssa Roberts
What is XML? • Extensible Markup Language • Specification to creating custom mark-up languages • Simplified version of SGML, originally made for people with semantic constraints Extensible – allows user to define mark-up elements SGML – Standard Generalized Markup Language
What does XML do? • XML is used for sharing structured data • Encoding documents (converting information into symbols to be communicated) • Serializing data (converting an object to be stored as a fileor transferred across a network) • Applications can be implemented in XML • RSS, MathML, GraphML, MusicXML
What’s it used for? • In business, XBRL (based on XML) • Transfers data easily • Reporting financial results • Some Banks use it • Web Publishing, single source of data XBRL Extensible Business Reporting Language
Continued • Government documentation, maps • Airplane/car manufacturers maintenance booklets • Common format for document storage/processing • Supports Unicode and is based on international standards
Examples • RSS feeds (used to publish frequently updated works) • News Websites(CNN) • OpenOffice • AbiWord • Apple’s iWorkApplications
Advantages • It’s universal • It’s based on SGML which has been around since 1986 so there’s a lot of experience and software available • The structure is suitable for most documents
Advantages • Can be updated incrementally • Strict syntax and parsing requirements make it simple, efficient, and consistent • It’s platform independent, so it’s immune to changes in technology and will work on any computer regardless of OS
Compared to HTML • XML is just data, whereas HTML is about creating pages and also how they should look • XML has nothing to do with the appearance of what you’re working with • It’s just data that you can manipulate and put where you want
Essentially… • XML makes data transfer and storage much easier • It has all the data in one place for you • It can represent common computer science data structures (records, lists, trees) • Efficient and simple