XML
XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. It's a super-set of HTML. XML is a document description
language and is designed so that authors can create their own document structures. The syntax is very
strict, much more so than HTML. All tags must be closed, and tags cannot overlap or the document will
not load. Here's a simple example:
<![CDATA[
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<shoppingcart>
<item>
<article>Pen</article>
<quantity>3</quantity>
<price unit="USD">3.99</price>
</item>
<item>
<article>Pencil</article>
<quantity>2</quantity>
<price unit="USD">2.95</price>
</item>
</shoppingcart>
</xml>
]]>
In practice, the code can get sort of hairy. Here's another example:
<![CDATA[
<TR BGCOLOR="#CCCCCC">
<TD><FONT FACE="arial,geneva" SIZE="-1">CPI</FONT></TD>
<CODE SRC="global://data_list" START_AT="11" END_AT="0" FORMAT="<td align="center" >%s</td> ">
<PARAM name="vary_on:0" src="global://US/EN/shared/cpi/final#total/change"/>
@@INCLUDE SRC="local://reports/parts/variant.xml"@@
<PARAM NAME="data:0" SRC="global://US/EN/shared/cpi/final#total/element" ENCODE_AS="html" FORMAT="%s" NULL="-"/>
</CODE>
</TR>
]]>
SMIL is an example of XML in action.
Readings
Building Web Sites - ITP Fall 2000 - Mike Cosaboom, Instructor
cosaboom@acf2.nyu.edu