What is XML & HTML ? What is Difference Between XML & HTML?
What is XML :
XML is stand for (Extensible Markup Language) is a mark up language. It is designed to store transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data.
The XML standard is a flexible way to create information formats and electronically share structured data via the public internet, as well as via corporate networks.XML does not define how the data is displayed; instead just transports it. The main objective of XML design is to ensure simplicity and compatibility, making it platform and programming language independent. XML also makes it easier to expand or upgrade to new operating systems, new applications, or new browsers, without losing data.
How Can XML be Used?
XML is used in many aspects of web development.
XML is often used to separate data from presentation.
Features of XML :
- Easy and efficient data sharing
- XML focuses on data rather than how it looks
- Supports platform transition
- Allows the validation
- XML supports unicode
- Secure Data Transfer
Easy and efficient data sharing :
Since XML is software and hardware independent , it is easier to share data between different systems with different hardware and software configuration. Any system with any programming language can read and process a XML document.
XML focuses on data rather than how it looks :
One of the reason, XML is popular because it focuses on data rather than data presentation. The other markup language such as HTML is used for data presentation. This separates the data and its presentation part and gives us the freedom to present the data, the way we want, once we receive it using XML.
Supports platform transition :
The main reason why changing to new systems and platform is challenging, because it involves the headache of data conversion between incompatible formats which often results in data loss.
Allows the validation :
A XML document can be validated using DTD or XML schema. This ensures that the XML document is syntactically correct and avoids any issues that may arise due to the incorrect XML.
XML support validation :
XML supports Unicode that allows it to communicate almost any information in any written human language.
Secure Data Transfers :
Security is very important when we talk about data transfers over the internet in the present world where incidents of hacking are on the rise. One of the key features of XML is that it provides much-needed security for transferring data. There are XML security standards maintained for the same. These standards have XML Digital Signature, XML Encryption, XML Key Management, SAM (Security Assertion Markup Language) and many more.
What is HTML :
HTML stand for Hyper Text Mark-up Language. which is used for creating web pages and web applications. Let’s see what is meant by Hypertext Markup Language, and Web page. For example, content could be structured within a set of paragraphs, a list of bulleted points, or using images and data tables. As the title suggests, this article will give you a basic understanding of HTML and its functions.
“Hypertext” refers to links that connect web pages to one another, either within a single website or between websites. Links are a fundamental aspect of the Web. By uploading content to the Internet and linking it to pages created by other people, you become an active participant in the World Wide Web.
HTML page structure:
The basic structure of an HTML page is laid out below. It contains the essential building-block elements (i.e. doctype declaration, HTML, head, title, and body elements) upon which all web pages are created.
This is the document type declaration (not technically a tag). It declares a document as being an HTML document. The doctype declaration is not case-sensitive.
<html> : This is called the HTML root element. All other elements are contained within it.
<head>: The head tag contains the “behind the scenes” elements for a webpage. Elements within the head aren’t visible on the front-end of a webpage. HTML elements used inside the <head> element include:
- <style>-This html tag allows us to insert styling into our webpages and make them appealing to look at with the help of CSS.
- <title>-The title is what is displayed on the top of your browser when you visit a website and contains title of the webpage that you are viewing-
- <base>-It specifies the base URL for all relative URL’s in a document
- <noscript>– Defines a section of HTML that is inserted when the scripting has been turned off in the users browser.
- <script>-This tag is used to add functionality in the website with the help of JavaScript.
- <meta>-This tag encloses the meta data of the website that must be loaded every time the website is visited. For eg:- the metadata charset allows you to use the standard UTF-8 encoding in your website. This in turn allows the users to view your webpage in the language of their choice. It is a self closing tag.
- <link>– The ‘link’ tag is used to tie together HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It is self closing.
<body>: The body tag is used to enclose all the visible content of a webpage. In other words, the body content is what the browser will show on the front-end.
An HTML document can be created using any text editor. Save the text file using .html or .htm. Once saved as an HTML document, the file can be opened as a webpage in the browser.
Features of HTML
1) It is a very easy and simple language. It can be easily understood and modified.
2) It is very easy to make an effective presentation with HTML because it has a lot of formatting tags.
3) It is a markup language, so it provides a flexible way to design web pages along with the text.
4) It facilitates programmers to add a link on the web pages (by html anchor tag), so it enhances the interest of browsing of the user.
5) It is platform-independent because it can be displayed on any platform like Windows, Linux, and Macintosh, etc.
6) It facilitates the programmer to add Graphics, Videos, and Sound to the web pages which makes it more attractive and interactive.
What is Difference Between XML & HTML?
There are many differences between HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and XML (eXtensible Markup Language). The important differences are given below:
| HTML | XML |
|---|---|
| HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. | XML stands for extensible Markup Language. |
| It is static in nature. | It is dynamic in nature. |
| It is a markup language. | It is provides framework to define markup languages. |
| It can ignore small errors. | It is does not allow errors. |
| It is not Case sensitive. | It is Case sensitive. |
| It is tags are predefined tags. | It is tags are user defined tags. |
| There are limited number of tags in HTML. | XML tags are extensible. |
| It does not preserve white spaces. | White space can be preserved in XML. |
| HTML tags are used for displaying the data. | XML tags are used for describing the data not for displaying. |
| In HTML, closing tags are not necessary. | In XML, closing tags are necessary. |
| It is used to display the data. | XML is used to store data. |
| It does not carry data it just display it. | It is carries the data to and from database. |
| HTML offers native object support. | IN XML , the objects are expressed by conventions using attributes. |
| HTML document size is relatively small. | XML document size is relatively large as the approach of formattingand the codes both are lengthy. |