XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a flexible way to
create common information formats and share both the format
and the data on the World Wide Web, intranets, and elsewhere.
XML can be used by any individual or group of individuals or
companies that wants to share information in a consistent
way. XML, a formal recommendation from the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C), is similar to the language of
today's Web pages, the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Both
XML and HTML contain markup symbols to describe the contents
of a page or file. HTML, however, describes the content of a
Web page (mainly text and graphic images) only in terms of
how it is to be displayed and interacted with. For example, a
<P> starts a new paragraph. XML describes the content
in terms of what data is being described. For example, a
<PHONENUM> could indicate that the data that followed
it was a phone number. This means that an XML file can be
processed purely as data by a program or it can be stored
with similar data on another computer or, like an HTML file,
that it can be displayed. For example, depending on how the
application in the receiving computer wanted to handle the
phone number, it could be stored, displayed, or dialed.
XML Features for the Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE)