The "X" stands for XML. For a Word document, the title would be presented with ". DOCX" at the end. XML is a markup language, which means it is a computer language that uses tags to describe components in a file. This XML markup language contains actual words instead of programming syntax. Using XML files is advantageous for many reasons including:. XML has multiple uses across a wide range of web pages and applications.
Some common uses of XML include:. Working with XML files is relatively simple, even for a beginner. A couple of different methods for opening an XML file are to open the file and edit with a text editor or to open and view the file with a web browser.
The steps for opening an XML file with a text editor include:. However, in Notepad, you can open the XML file, but the formatting may become chaotic and confusing. The steps for opening an XML file to view in a web browser include:. In today's technologically-advanced society, it is important to understand how to use XML files in the workplace. Users have a couple of different options for opening and viewing XML files, depending on your technology preferences. Find jobs.
For example, it's widely used in B2B data exchanges. Since XML stores data in plain text format, the storage is independent of your platform and your data can be exported, imported, or simply moved much more easily.
As mentioned above, XML stores data in plain text. That's why you can open XML files with a number of different programs. Generally, right-click the XML file, select Open with from the menu, and choose a program.
You can try any of the programs below:. Note, however, that these programs cannot execute XML because all you can find inside the document is structured data. XML isn't the internet staple it used to be. Today, JSON is its most popular alternative to integrate data. If you're a programmer, however, you'll still have to work with XML occasionally.
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What Are Markup Languages? According to Wikipedia : "The idea and terminology evolved from the 'marking up' of paper manuscripts, i. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products.
List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Full-time writer and ghostwriter covering a range of topics including marketing, healthcare, and technology. Updated March 11, Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Ferrara, Darla. There are look-up tables, work files, preference settings, and so on. XML makes it very easy to do this. So you decide to save this data in a separate file using XML.
Example shows how it might look. Now all your program needs to do is read in the XML file and convert the markup into some convenient data structure using an XML parser. This software component reads and digests XML into a more usable form. There are lots of libraries that will do this, as well as standalone programs. Outputting XML is just as easy as reading it. Again, there are modules and libraries people have written that you can incorporate in any program.
XML is a very good choice for storing data in many cases. Parsers have mechanisms to verify syntax and completeness, so you can protect your program from corrupted data. XML works best for small data files or for data that is not meant to be searched randomly. A novel is a good example of a document that is not randomly accessed unless you are one of those people who peek at the ending of a novel before finishing , whereas a telephone directory is randomly accessed and therefore may not be the best choice to put in a single, enormous XML document.
A database program like Oracle or MySQL would scale much better, caching frequently used data and using a hash table to zero in on records with lightning speed.
I mentioned before that a large class of XML documents are narrative, meaning they are for human consumption. Rather, the XML must be processed to put the data in a presentable form. XML has a number of strategies and tools for turning the unappealing mishmash of marked-up plain text into eye-pleasing views suitable for web pages, magazines, or whatever you like. Most XML markup languages focus on the task of how to organize information semantically.
That is, they describe the data for what it is, not in terms of how it should look. How you get from the raw data to the finished product is called formatting. There are a number of different strategies for formatting. This is a separate document not itself XML that contains mappings from element names to presentation details font style, color, margins, and so on. Example shows a typical example of a CSS stylesheet. To apply this stylesheet, you need to add a special instruction to the source document.
It looks like this:. This is a processing instruction , not an element. Figure shows a screenshot of how it looks in Safari version 1. CSS is limited to cases where the output text will be in the same order as the input data. It would not be so useful if you wanted to show only an excerpt of the data, or if you wanted it to appear in a different order from the data.
For example, suppose you collected a lot of phone numbers in an XML file and then wanted to generate a telephone directory from that. A more powerful technique is to transform the XML. Transformation is a process that breaks apart an XML document and builds a new one. The new document may or may not use the same markup language in fact, XML is only one option; you can transform XML into any kind of text.
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