Extensible Mark-up Language (XML)
Most of the standards in the e-GIF are based on the interchange format, XML.
What is XML?
XML is designed to be self-descriptive, and can be used on a wide variety of platforms and interpreted with a wide variety of tools.
- XML stands for EXtensible Markup Language
- XML is a markup language much like HTML
- XML was designed to describe data
- XML tags are not predefined. You must define your own tags
- XML uses a Document Type Definition (DTD) or an XML Schema to describe the data
- XML with a DTD or XML Schema is designed to be self-descriptive
What does XML look like?
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<joke>
<question>What's brown and sticky?</question>
<answer>A stick</answer>
<applause/>
</joke>
Specific standards
XML v1.0 has been adopted in the Data Integration layer, in the areas of:
XML v1.1 has been adopted in the Business Services layer, in the area of:
Why is XML recommended?
XML is readable by both computers and humans. This makes editing/debugging/creating XML a lot easier.
XML can be used on a wide variety of platforms and interpreted with a wide variety of tools. This makes interoperability a whole lot simpler.
XML separates the data from the way it is presented. Applying stylesheets to the same XML file can generate, for example, HTML and PDF files.
Further reading
| An introduction: | http://www.w3schools.com/xml/ |
| FAQ: | http://www.ucc.ie/xml/ |
| Technical specification: | http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/ |
| Why XML: | http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/03/24/XMLisOK |