What is the difference between XML and HTML?

• XML is the acronym from Extensible Markup Language (meta-language of noting/marking). XML is a resembling language with HTML. It was developed for describing data.
• The XML tags are not pre-defined in XML. You will have to create tags according to your needs.
• XML is self descriptive.
• XML uses DDT principle (Defining the Document Type) to formally describe the data.
• The main difference between XML and HTML: XML is not a substitute for HTML.

 

XML and HTML were developed with different purposes:

• XML was developed to describe data and to focalize on what the data represent.
• HTML was developed to display data about to focalize on the way that data looks.
• HTML is about displaying data, XML is about describing information.
• XML is extensible.

 

The tags used to mark the documents and the structures of documents in HTML are pre-defined. The author of HTML documents can use only tags that were previously defined in HTML. The Standard XML gives you the possibility to define personal structures and tags.

 

XML is a complement of the HTML language

It is important to understand that XML is not a substitute for HTML. In the future development of the Web, XML will be the main language to describe the structure and the Web data, and the HTML language will be responsible for displaying the data.

 

XML in the future development of web

We participated to the evolution of XML since its appearance. It is amazing to observe its rapid evolution, and how fast it was adopted by the majority of software developers. We strongly believe that XML will become as important as HTML for the future web evolution, especially when it comes to data manipulation.

 

How can you use XML?

• XML can store data separately from HTML.
• XML can be used to store data inside the HTML documents.
• XML can be used as a format for exchanging information.
• XML can be used to store data in files and databases.

 

The HTML pages are used to display data. The data are sometimes stored in the interior of HTML pages. Using XML, you can store data in a separated file. This way, you can easily concentrate on using HTML for formatting and displaying, and you can also be certain that the modifications won’t bring any modifications to any HTML code.

XML can also store data inside the HTML documents. The XML data will store data in HTML documents as “data islands.” You can concentrate on HTML to format and display data.

In the real world, the calculation systems and the databases are containing data in incompatible formats. One of the most soliciting provocations for developers was exchanging data between incompatible systems over the internet. Converting XML data can reduce the complexity, and it can also create data that are easy to read by any kind of application.

XML can be used to store data in files or databases. You can write applications to store and recover information from the hard disks, and you can write generic application to display certain types of data.