XML Unleashed

XML Syntax Fundamentals

XML is really nothing more than a specification, so it's important to have a solid grip on XML syntax. If you're familiar with SGML, you can see the obvious similarities between XML syntax and SGML syntax. If not, you can assess XML syntax with respect to HTML. In the world of XML, HTML is merely a specific XML vocabulary, so the XML syntax must be sufficient to completely describe HTML.

The basic building block of an XML document is the entity, which contains either parsed or unparsed data. Parsed data consists of characters that are considered either character data or markup and that are processed by an XML processor, which you'll learn about in a moment. Unparsed character data is handled as raw text and isn't processed. ...