XML: Language that is Extensible

XML: Language which is Extensible.

XML Definition

XML is an abbreviation for extensible markup language. XML was developed about in 1996 and it is a subset of SGML. Its documents resembles to SGML. XML was made less complicated as compared to SGML to enable it to be used on the web. An ISO 10646 standard is used for XML for encoding characters.

Markup languages like as HTML or XML, allow special markup. These markups are to be embedded with the rest of the text that will enable the program that displays the file in order to determine how to display the text. By this way special text like headers may be centered. They can also have a larger and bolder font or specific display colors may be set. Additionally, many elements may be added to the file such as bulleted or numbered lists and tables.

Advantages

 Apart from having many disadvantages some of the advantages of XML are:

• User can define its own elements and thereby support a wider variety of information that can be displayed. XML can be used to describe chemical structures. It can be used to display other scientific or artistic data that cannot be easily displayed using HTML.
• Documents can be better organized into structures in order to allow for easier reference using and generating items like a table of contents.
• XML allows elements of the content to be used to sort through database information easily.

Categories of XML:

XML has different categories that have slightly different purposes. They are listed below with descriptions.

• XML– It is the category which includes all other categories which are stated as below. It refers to XML as used with a “well-formed” or valid document.
• XSL– XSL is Extensible Style sheet Language. It is used to include additional style on XML pages. HTML code can also be embedded in the .xsl style sheet file. This form of style sheet control is much more powerful and complicated than extensible style sheets.
• DSO– It is data source object programming model. It is a technology provided by Microsoft which is used with small database support. It is a group or set of controls which can be used to allow a user to page through a table of information displayed on an HTML page which is linked to XML.
• DOM– It is Document Object Model. It is a programming model that represents parts of an XML document as objects.
• RDF-  It is called as Resource Description Framework