Can someone help me understand XML. I've been to xml.com and others but I still don't understand what its used for and how it works. For example EDI applications, is it a programming language?, and anything else relevant.
Thanks,
James
2007-08-17 05:57:15 · 3 answers · asked by stoneybalonious 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Programming & Design
Basically, XML is used to transfer data in a standard format. Data is contained in "nodes" as attributes or inner text between opening and closing nodes. The reason XML is used is for the strict compliance it requires to standards (ex: all nodes must be closed).
The programmer defines what the node is, and usually the receiver of the data assigns the node name to a variable and the data to the value. This allows data providers a standard to sell or dissiminate their data across the web to any type of platform.
2007-08-17 07:33:13 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
XML is used to describe a document object model. It contains tags which can contain textual data or attributes (which are textual data). Think of it this way: the advantage of XML is, if you need to see the contents of a data file, XML is human readable. The alternative is a messy text file structure, or worse, pure binary, which is not human readable.
XML can be used to describe any data structure that is hierarchical or array based (so, pretty much all of them). What the XML represents is up to the designer; HTML is similar to XML but the browser expects certain tags like