Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, very flexible text format derived from SGML (ISO 8879). Originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing, XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere.
This page describes the work being done at W3C within the XML Activity, and how it is structured. Work at W3C takes place in Working Groups. The Working Groups within the XML Activity are listed below, together with links to their individual web pages.
You can find and download formal technical specifications here, because we publish them. This is not a place to find tutorials, products, courses, books or other XML-related information. There are some links below that may help you find such resources.
You will find links to W3C Recommendations, Proposed Recommendations, Working Drafts, conformance test suites and other documents on the pages for each Working Group. Each document also contains email addresses you can use to send comments or questions, for example if you have been writing software to implement them and have found problems or errors.
Please do not send us email asking us to help you learn a language or specification; there are plenty of resources online, and the people editing and developing the specifications are very busy. We are interested in technical comments and errata.
If your organization would like to join the W3C, or if you would like to participate formally in a working group (and have the necessary resources to attend meetings), you can read more
about the Consortium.
There is more detail about each of these Working Groups in the
Activity Statement and also on the individual Working Group public web pages.
Most Working Groups have both a public web page and another more private one that is only accessible to W3C Members. The private page has telephone numbers, schedules for meetings and conference calls, links to internal editing drafts, and other administrative information.
The membership of this group is the Chairs of the individual Working Groups. Its role is to provide a forum for coordination between the Working Groups of the XML Activity, and between the XML Activity and other parts of W3C, and between the XML Activity and other organizations.
The mission of the XML Core Working Group is to develop and maintain the specifications for XML itself and closely related specifications such as Namespaces in XML, the XML Information Set, and XInclude.
XSLT Working Group
The
XSLT Working Group is responsible for XSL Transformations (XSLT) and a number of supporting specifications.
XPPL Working Group
The Efficient XML Interchange Working Group
The
Efficient XML Interchange Working Group is responsible for developing ways to exchange XML documents in ways that are as efficient as is practical without compromising the interoperability of XML itself. It also continues the work of the
XML Binary Characterization Working Group. This Working Group is
not about producing a closed, proprietary or obfuscated “binary XML ”—The W3C is all about increasing interoperability!
The XML Processing Model Working Group is working on defining a scripting language for XML: that is, a way to specify what operations should be performed on an XML document and in what order.
The charter of the XML Linking Working Group has expired, and the group is not currently active. When still active, it was working on hypertext links for XML. This includes the XML Linking Language (XLink) and the XML Pointer Language (XPointer).
The XML Query Working Group is working on the XML Query Language, a way to provide flexible query facilities to extract data from real and virtual XML documents on the Web. This includes publication of XQuery and also XPath, in conjunction with the
XSLT Working Group (part of the
Style Activity).
W3C XML Schemas provide mechanisms to define and describe the structure, content, and to some extent semantics of XML documents.
XML Prague, the leading XML-specific conference in Europe, will be in the city of Prague in February, 2012.
markupforum, in Stuttgart, is on the 6th March 2012; W3C is a conference partner.
The leading conference relating to the theory and practice of XML and other markup is, of course,
Balisage, in Montreél in August. W3C is a co-sponsor of Balisage 2012, and there is a registration discount for W3C Members.
Call for Balisage papers.
XML Amsterdam was in Amsterdam in October, 2011, and is a sister event to XML Prague in the Spring.
There are so many resources related to XML that we can't possibly list them all here. This is a
good thing, because it means XML is a success! In addition to a
history of the development of XML at W3C, there is an extensive index at the
Cover Pages, maintained by Robin Cover. The individual Working Group public web pages may have links to specific resources. There are Usenet newsgroups (e.g.
comp.text.xml) and public mailing lists (e.g.
xml-dev).
