XML stands for “Extensible Markup Language”. It is a markup language used for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. XML was designed to be a flexible and adaptable way of storing and transmitting data, making it useful for a wide range of applications.
In an XML document, data is represented using tags, which are similar to HTML tags. These tags define the structure of the document and are used to identify the different elements within it. For example, a tag might be used to represent a customer’s name or address in a database.
XML is often used in web development for creating and exchanging data between different systems and applications. It can be used to represent a wide variety of data types, from simple text to complex documents and multimedia content.
Here’s an example of an XML document that represents information about a book:
xmlCopy code<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<book>
<title>Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone</title>
<author>J.K. Rowling</author>
<publisher>Bloomsbury</publisher>
<published_year>1997</published_year>
<isbn>978-0747532743</isbn>
</book>
In this example, the root element of the XML document is “book”. The “book” element contains five child elements, each representing a different piece of information about the book (title, author, publisher, published_year, and isbn). The text between the opening and closing tags of each element contains the actual data for that element.
Note that the first line of the document specifies the XML version and encoding used. This is a standard part of XML syntax.