We often hear the terms binary an xml regarding file formats.
For non programmers and for some programmers it sounds like a foreign language.
In this post i will try to explain the basics simply.
What is a file?
Well , a file is a series of bytes. In general every file is a binary file and how we can watch it’s contents depend on the software we use.
for example , when we want to watch XML file contents we can use many software tools
for this purpose.
Here we can see one of the benefits of using XML versus Binary.
We can also add , change or delete nodes on an XML file without using any programming software for that.
In this video you can can experience a change in an XML file contents that cause a
change in an MS Word document contents.
Change an XML contents
I hope that it makes more clear the difference between a Binary and an XML file.
You can understand from it that a change in a binary file contents can be impossible
or can cause to a corrupt file.
Of course this i just one of the benefits of using an XML format, and on the next blog
I will try to dive into more of the great features of an XML.