How does XML work?
April 3, 2008Not only does XML hold your data, but it can also hold the structure and even classification of the information inside your document. Using XML the document carries information about itself!
This is possible because in XML you can define your own tags. This is what makes it so much better than HTML which only has a few tags for display - but XML is interested in so much more than just the display!
Creating new tags in XML
As long as you follow the rules - you can easily create new XML tags.
XML tags often look the same as HTML tags. Here are some XML tags:
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<book_title>XML PROGRAMMING WITH VB AND ASP</book_title> |
What are the rules of XML?
There are 10 basic rules to XML.
Lets take a look at the goals set out for XML by the W3C:
- XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the Internet.
- XML shall support a wide variety of applications.
- XML shall be compatible with SGML.
- It shall be easy to write programs which process XML documents.
- The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the absolute minimum, ideally zero.
- XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear.
- The XML design should be prepared quickly.
- The design of XML shall be formal and concise.
- XML documents shall be easy to create.
- Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.
