== Introduction ==
This is an introductory text to XML, the extensible markup language used for our texts. 

There is also the [http://www.w3.org/TR/xml/ W3C Recommendation].

== Basic facts about XML ==
 * An XML document is a plain text file, preferably in Unicode encoding
 * The structure is made up out of nested elements, like a matroshka.
  {{{
   <root>
      <nestedElement>With <bold>content</bold></nestedElement>
      <anotherElement with="attribute" another='one'>Elements can have attributes <emptyTag/>, as well</anotherElement>
      <!-- I am a comment <abc>everything here is</abc> ignored -->
      <question>did we already talk about &amp; entities?</question>
   </root>
   }}}
   As with a matroshka, also in XML, you cannot put half a puppet into the bigger puppet: they have to be properly nested.
 * Some characters are forbidden, they have to be escaped by entity references:
   - {{{<}}}: {{{&lt;}}}
   - {{{>}}}: {{{&gt;}}}
   - {{{&}}}: {{{&amp;}}}
   - {{{"}}}: {{{&quot;}}} (To a lesser extent, namely only in attribute values)
   - {{{'}}}: {{{&apos;}}} (To a lesser extent, namely only in attribute values)

== Unicode ==
 * Some web resources
  * [http://betterexplained.com/articles/unicode/ Unicode and You] some explanations
  * [http://shapecatcher.com/ Shapecatcher]: draw a Unicode character and get its code number