XML Formatter Online

XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used to store and exchange structured data. XML is designed to be both human-readable and machine-readable, and it provides a standardized way to represent data that can be used across different systems and applications.

In an XML document, data is enclosed in tags that describe its structure and meaning. Tags are used to define elements, which can contain other elements and/or text. Attributes can be added to elements to provide additional information.

XML is often used in web development, particularly for data exchange between different applications or systems. For example, XML is commonly used for syndicating news feeds, such as RSS (Rich Site Summary) and Atom. It is also used for SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), which is a protocol for exchanging data between web services.

XML can be validated against a document type definition (DTD) or an XML schema to ensure that it conforms to a particular format or structure. This helps to ensure that the data is consistent and can be accurately interpreted by other systems that use the same format.

XML is a versatile technology and has many applications beyond web development, including in scientific data exchange, electronic publishing, and more.

XML was first proposed in the late 1990s as a standard for storing and exchanging data on the internet. It was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in response to a growing need for a standardized way to represent data that could be shared across different systems and applications.

Prior to the development of XML, there were a variety of different data exchange formats, each with its own syntax and limitations. These included HTML, SGML, and various proprietary formats used by different software applications. XML was designed to be more flexible and extensible than these other formats, making it easier to create, exchange, and interpret structured data.

The first version of the XML specification was published by the W3C in 1998, and it has since undergone a number of revisions and updates. In addition to the core XML specification, the W3C has also developed a number of related technologies, such as XPath, XSLT, and XML Schema, that are used to process, transform, and validate XML documents.

XML has become a widely adopted standard for data exchange and storage, particularly on the web. It is used for a wide range of applications, from news syndication and e-commerce to scientific data exchange and metadata management. While there have been some criticisms of XML's complexity and verbosity, it remains a critical technology for many industries and applications.