XML for BizTalk development

XML has become a nearly ubiquitous format for data exchange over the last decade, but many developers still do not know that much about it. Fortunately for us, most of the process of working with XML is abstracted away with tools that make our jobs easier. This section will provide a very brief introduction to XML that can serve as a basic guide in the event that you have had no XML experience. I would call it a rough survival guide at most.

A brief history of XML

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a syntax for describing information; originally text documents. XML documents primarily consist of markup and content. Markup describes and organizes the content within it; content is, well, content. Importantly, XML itself doesn't actually do anything; it is merely a format that enables us to do things with it. XML documents are basically hierarchical structures that layout information in an extensible tree. XML has been designed from inception to be compatible with international languages through UNICODE text encoding and thus removes a major impediment to many internationalization challenges that had plagued previous formats. Part of this benefit comes at the cost, or feature, depending how you view it, of being quite verbose.