Responsive Website Design

XML (Extensible Markup Language)

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human and machine readable. It is one of the most widely used formats for sharing structured information today.

The design goals of XML emphasize simplicity, generality, and usability across the Internet. It is a textual data format with support via Unicode for different human languages. Although the design of XML focuses on documents, the language is widely used for the representation of arbitrary data structures such as those used in web services.

XML's primary function is to create formats for data that is used to encode information for documentation, database records, transactions and many other types of data. XML data may be used for creating different content types that are generated by building dissimilar types of content including web, print and mobile content that are based on the XML data.

Several schema systems exist to aid in the definition of XML-based languages, while programmers have developed many Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to aid the processing of XML.