XML by Example

Four Common Errors

As you have seen, the XML syntax is very strict: Elements must have both

a start and end tag, or they must use the special empty element tag;

attribute values must be fully quoted; there can be only one top-level ele-

ment; and so on.

A strict syntax was a design goal for XML. The browser vendors asked for

it. HTML is very lenient, and HTML browsers accept anything that looks

vaguely like HTML. It might have helped with the early adoption of HTML

but now it is a problem.

Studies estimate that more than 50% of the code in a browser deals with

errors or the sloppiness of HTML authors. Consequently, an HTML browser

is difficult to write, ...