So I am very confused about XML in general. according to the things i read about it, its not a programming language. its not used to display anything. basically they even say it does nothing. then the question arises....WHY is it used?WHERE is it used?and HOW is it used?....i tried reading documents online(i read all the pages on xml in w3schools.com) but none of them made it clear to me as exactly why xml is useful in anyway. And if it is, then how exactly can i use it? I am not able to understand the concept of XML. Any inputs are greatly appreciated :).
UberJoker 0 Junior Poster in Training
Cragdo 2 Light Poster
You can view XML as a lightweight database where you can store data in an xml file, I believe that the w3schools tutorial uses a cd collection for its tutorial. an XML file on its own won't do anything just as a database on its own won't do anything but if you attach an XSLT template, which is like an XML stylesheet, to your XML file then you can display the data to screen. You can also use XSLT a bit like SQL to pull only the data that you require. XHTML is based on XML.
There are anumber of ways that you can use XML for such as RSS feeds. If you read up on XSLT and XPATH then it should become clearer to you.
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