What is XML?

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable.

The design goals of XML emphasize simplicity, generality, and usability across the Internet. It is a textual data format with strong support via Unicode for different human languages. Although the design of XML focuses on documents, the language is widely used for the representation of arbitrary data structures such as those used in web services.

XML file to display name of students

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <students> <name>Rajesh</name> <name>Hari</name> <name>Manas</name> </students>

XML file to display name and mark in three subjects for each student

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <students> <student> <name>Rajesh</name> <marks> <subject>Biology: 20</subject> <subject>Physics: 49</subject> <subject>Biology: 35</subject> </marks> </student> <student> <name>Hari</name> <marks> <subject>Biology: 67</subject> <subject>Physics: 45</subject> <subject>Biology: 45</subject> </marks> </student> <student> <name>Manas</name> <marks> <subject>Biology: 89</subject> <subject>Physics: 32</subject> <subject>Biology: 41</subject> </marks> </student> </students>

XML with CSS

Embedding CSS style sheet with XML we can newly create an XML document to display in clear and precise on a web page. It can be displayed in two ways with CSS and XSLT (XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language) is a styling language for XML.). Unlike HTML in XML the CSS styles are not included as default instead the properties are defined for each element.

CSS style sheets provide certain style instruction which is applied before the start of the root element. This CSS is used in a scenario where we are in need to define the size of an element, adding content to the document and creating a colour and background image on the web. With this the tree data on the document is supposed to apply Style rules. In other words: It doesn’t change the XML Structure when applying Styles.

Example of XML & CSS

XML File

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="css1.css"?> <!DOCTYPE students> <students> <name>Rajesh</name> <name>Hari</name> <name>Manas</name> </students>

CSS File

students { background-color: pink; } name { display: block; color:red; font-weight: bold; font-size: 28px; }

Example 2 of XML & CSS

XML File

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="css2.css"?> <!DOCTYPE students> <students> <name>Rajesh</name> <name>Hari</name> <name>Manas</name> </students>

CSS File

students { background-color: pink; } name { display:inline-block; border:1px solid black; padding:15px; margin:15px; color:darkgreen; background-color:lightgreen; font-weight: bold; font-size: 28px; }