The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a data format used for exchanging structured data. The body of an XML document contains data and markup which encodes a description of the document's logical structure. XML is hardware and software independent and is the most widely used markup language today. It is also the preferred standard for data exchange between heterogeneous applications.

These topics provide a quick overview of some essential XML information and concludes with some recommendations for getting more in-depth information about XML: