XML

From IndieWeb

HΓ₯kon Wium Lie reading XML for Dummies book

XML is a markup language syntax, similar to SGML, but with draconian error handling that tends to make it fragile in practice.

How to not

How to not use XML, use HTML instead:

  • If you're thinking of building something on/with XML, stop, and consider building on HTML instead. Beyond the obvious example of microformats, this lesson has been (re)learned many times across industries, e.g. 2021-06-26 One Enormous Step at a Time – Now JATS

    … start with a HTML-compliant hierarchical structure, and add additional structure and data to it progressively – without needing to know anything about XML.

Criticism

Fragile

See numerous cited examples and writeups at:

Security Vulnerabilities

It is also susceptible to security vulnerabilities. See the description of the defusedxml Python library for a list of attacks.

See Also