Get to know XML, a strict yet flexible markup language used for everything from documentation to graphics, and the basis of most government open standard formats

XML is a hierarchical markup language. It uses opening and closing tags to define data. It’s used to store and exchange data, and because of its extreme flexibility, it’s used for everything from documentation to graphics (or for interchanging data between different systems or applications).

Reading the sample XML, you might find there’s an intuitive quality to the format. You can probably understand the data in this document whether you’re familiar with the subject matter or not. XML is also extremely flexible. Unlike HTML, there’s no predefined list of tags. You are free to create whatever data structure you need to represent.

See What is XML?

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XML is a hierarchical markup language. It uses opening and closing tags to define data. It’s used to store and exchange data, and because of its extreme flexibility, it’s used for everything from documentation to graphics. Here’s a sample XML document: