Editing XML (section)

{{Other uses}}{{Short description|Markup language by the W3C for encoding of data}}
{{Infobox technology standard
| title = XML (standard)
| image = Extensible Markup Language (XML) logo.svg
| first_published = {{Start date and age|1998|2|10}}
| status = Published, [[W3C recommendation]]
| year_started = {{Start date and age|1996}}
| editors = [[Tim Bray]], [[Jean Paoli]], [[Michael Sperberg-McQueen]], Eve Maler, François Yergeau, [[John W. Cowan]]
| base_standards = [[SGML]]
| long_name = Extensible Markup Language
| related_standards = [[W3C XML Schema]]
| abbreviation = XML
| domain = [[Serialization]]
| version = 1.1 (2nd ed.)
| version_date = {{Start date and age|2006|9|29}}
| organization = [[World Wide Web Consortium]] (W3C)
}}
{{Infobox file format
| name = XML (file format)
| extension = .xml
|_nomimecode = on
| mime = <code>application/xml</code>, <code>text/xml</code><ref>{{cite IETF |first1=H.|last1=Thompson|first2=C.|last2=Lilley|rfc=7303 |title=XML Media Types |publisher=Internet Engineering Task Force |date=July 2014}}</ref>
| uniform_type = public.xml
| conforms_to = public.text
| magic = <code><?xml</code>
| owner = [[World Wide Web Consortium]]
| genre = [[Markup language]]
| extended_from = [[SGML]]
| extended_to = [[List of XML markup languages|Numerous languages]], including [[XHTML]], [[RSS]], [[Atom (web standard)|Atom]], and [[KML]]
| standard = {{Plainlist|
* [http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-xml-20081126/ 1.0, 5th ed.] ({{release date|2008|11|26}})
* [http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml11-20060816/ 1.1, 2nd ed.] ({{release date|2006|08|16}})
  }}
| open = Yes
| free = Yes
}}
'''Extensible Markup Language''' ('''XML''') is a [[markup language]] and [[file format]] for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding [[electronic document|documents]] in a format that is both [[human-readable]] and [[Machine-readable data|machine-readable]]. The [[World Wide Web Consortium]]'s XML 1.0 Specification{{sfnp|Bray|Paoli|Sperberg-McQueen|Maler|2008}} of 1998<ref>{{cite web|editor1-first=T.|editor1-last=Bray|editor2-first=J.|editor2-last=Paoli|editor3-first=C. M.|editor3-last=Sperberg-McQueen|publisher=W3C|title=Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0|edition=1st|format=W3C Recommendation|url=https://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210.html |date=10 February 1998}}</ref> and several other related specifications<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bikakis|first1=N.|last2=Tsinaraki|first2=C.|last3=Gioldasis|first3=N.|last4=Stavrakantonakis|first4=I.|last5=Christodoulakis|first5=S.|year=2013|title=Semantic Hyper/Multimedia Adaptation: Schemes and Applications|isbn=978-3-642-28977-4|chapter=The XML and Semantic Web Worlds: Technologies, Interoperability and Integration: A Survey of the State of the Art|chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236857003|pages=319–360|series=Studies in Computational Intelligence|volume=418|editor1-last=Anagnostopoulos|editor1-first=I.|editor2-last=Bieliková|editor2-first=M.|editor3-last=Mylonas|editor3-first=P.|editor4-last=Tsapatsoulis|editor4-first=N.|publisher=Springer|location=Berlin|doi=10.1007/978-3-642-28977-4_12}}</ref>—all of them free [[open standard]]s—define XML.<ref>{{cite web |title=Document license – 2015 version |url=https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2015/doc-license|website=W3C|access-date=24 July 2020}}</ref>

The design goals of XML emphasize simplicity, generality, and usability across the [[Internet]].{{sfnp|Bray|Paoli|Sperberg-McQueen|Maler|2008|loc=section 1.1}} It is a textual data format with strong support via [[Unicode]] for different [[human languages]]. Although the design of XML focuses on documents, the language is widely used for the representation of arbitrary [[data structure]]s,<ref>{{cite journal |title=Extremes of XML |first=Philip |last=Fennell |date=June 2013 |journal=XML London 2013 |doi=10.14337/XMLLondon13.Fennell01 |url=http://xmllondon.com/2013/presentations/fennell/ |pages=80–86 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |isbn=978-0-9926471-0-0|doi-access=free |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230301154911/https://xmllondon.com/2013/presentations/fennell/ |archive-date= Mar 1, 2023 }}</ref> such as those used in [[web service]]s.<ref name="WhatIs">{{Cite web|first1=P.|last1=Loshin|first2=D.|last2=Linthicum|first3=M.|last3=Giza|title=What is XML (Extensible Markup Language)?|url=https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/XML-Extensible-Markup-Language |date=October 2021|website=TechTarget WhatIs|publisher=Informa|language=en}}</ref>

Several [[XML schema|schema systems]] exist to aid in the definition of XML-based languages, while programmers have developed many [[application programming interface]]s (APIs) to aid the processing of XML data.