I'm not going to argue that XML isn't text. At some levels, it definitely a valid position to think of XML as a text format. (It's human readable and human editable, after all.)
But topic at hand is far lower level, and such details does matter. Let's compare HTML (a text format) and XML (a binary format).
| HTML | XML
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| MIME type | text | application (binary)
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| Character Encoding | External to document | Embedded in document
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| Parser | The document must be decoded prior to being given to the parser or information allowing the parser to do so must be provided to the parser. | The document cannot be decoded prior to being given to the parser because the document must be parsed to determine its encoding.
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|---|
| Generator | The document must be returned unencoded or the generator must indicate which encoding was used to encode it. | The encoding must be chosen before the document is generated, so the text in the document is already encoded.
|
|---|
Your definition may differ. This is the one I was using.
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Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
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Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big>
<blockquote> <br /> <dd>
<dl> <dt> <em> <font>
<h1> <h2> <h3> <h4>
<h5> <h6> <hr /> <i>
<li> <nbsp> <ol> <p>
<small> <strike> <strong>
<sub> <sup> <table>
<td> <th> <tr> <tt>
<u> <ul>
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Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not
<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).
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Want more info? How to link
or How to display code and escape characters
are good places to start.
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