XML facts for kids

The Extensible Markup Language (short XML) is a markup language like HTML but is extensible. It's created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). XML defines rules for the construction of a document. XML adds context to the information in a document. It does not say how this should be displayed.

Some programs get information out of an XML-document. To do that, they need an API. There are many APIs for XML.

You can write a description of an XML document in a way that is useful for programmers. There are several languages for this; the best known is called DTD.

Syntax

XML uses less than (<) and greater than (>) to show tags. For example, a paragraph in HTML would be <p>.

A closing tag is a tag used to enclose the value of the tag. The tag has a slash (/) before its name. For example, </p>

A tag which is empty can be represented as an opening tag but with a slash before the >. For example, <p />

Languages

The following languages are based on XML.

Text

• XSL-FO
• DocBook
• DITA
• XHTML (HTML based on ALL)
• TEI (Text Encoding Initiative)
• NITF (News Industry Text Format)

=Images for kids

• SVG (vector graphics)
• X3D (3D modelling language)
• Collada (Language to change informations between different 3D programs)

Earth

• Geography Markup Language (GML)
• GPS Exchange Format (GPX): XML for GPS informatons
• Keyhole Markup Language (KML): coordinates for Google Earth
• OpenImmo : XML for Houses with position informations

Multimedia

• SMIL (Informations with times from multimedia)
• MPEG-7 (for MPEG-7)
• Laszlo (LZX)

Safety

• SAML (describe and send informations about safety)
• XML Signature
• XML Encryption

Other

There are a lot more languages that use XML. A couple of them are:

• RSS
• WAP/WML

See also

In Spanish: Extensible Markup Language para niños