Learning XML

[intrudah]

I am currently planning on learning XML now that I know PHP/MySQL. Every thing I read about XML hypes up its possibilities but I havent found a good reason to learn it yet.

I currently design sites, but most of the time I do maintanience and a lot of back-end php apps.

Few Questions
Would it benifit me to learn XML for normal web development?
or Is XML in to much of an early stage to take advantage of.

What are a few practical uses of XML in normal design work?
Ive worked with other source with a gallery and for templates but besides that I havent seen it to often.

[GotGoose?]

XML is just a very simple tag-based language that is used to contain data.

example:



<menu>
<menuitem>Item #1</menuitem>
<menuitem>Item #2</menuitem>
</menu>


Here's a helpful article on macromedia:
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/dreamweaver/articles/xml_overview.html

[λ]

XML is simply a structured way of storing information. It's not really a language.. more of a file format.

XML can be used to store anything that naturally takes a nested tree or list format. Plus, it's both machine readable and human readable (at a stretch ;)), so it's good for files that you might edit yourself but need to be understood by a computer.

[mathew.er]

XML (extensible mark-up language) is in fact the same as HTML (well, at least what HTML had to be at the begining). Its not a programming language, its a mark-up language. Its purpose is to simply format data in its form and content.

You ask for a web development use? XHTML is in fact XML with defined DTD (document type definition) and you can actualy use XML to build a site instead of using (X)HTML. You can use it to offer visitors output in sanely formated form or to transer data between applications. It simply formates data... and its realy good at it :D

[Flashmatazz]

It sure wouldn't hurt to learn more about XML I'd say :)

Have a look here: http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp