XML

XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. It was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and was first released in 1998. XML is used to store and transport data, and it is mostly used in applications where data needs to be moved between different systems that may not share the same technology.

Here are some important points to understand about XML:

Self-Descriptive: XML documents are self-descriptive because the markup language describes the content itself. Each element in an XML document can have sub-elements with their own data, and the tags give meaning to the data they enclose.
Hierarchical (Tree-like) Structure: XML documents form a tree-like structure that starts at "the root" and branches to "the leaves". This is also known as a parent-child relationship.
Platform Independent: XML is software and hardware independent. This makes it ideal for complex needs like B2B, where systems often need to interact without any system-level compatibility.
Extensible: As its name suggests, XML is extensible, meaning you can define your own elements (tags) and create a document structure that suits your application.

Here's a simple XML example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<bookstore>
    <book category="cooking">
        <title lang="en">Everyday Italian</title>
        <author>Giada De Laurentiis</author>
        <year>2005</year>
        <price>30.00</price>
    </book>
    <book category="children">
        <title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
        <author>J K. Rowling</author>
        <year>2005</year>
        <price>29.99</price>
    </book>
</bookstore>

In this example, <bookstore> is the root element. <book>, <title>, <author>, <year>, and <price> are all child elements.

Although it is very similar to HTML in terms of its syntax, XML is not a markup language for displaying documents. Instead, XML is a way of describing data, and it provides a basic syntax that can be used to share information between different kinds of computers, different applications, and different organizations.

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is used to describe data. The XML standard is a flexible way to create information formats and electronically share structured data via the public internet and corporate networks.