Get to know XML
The XML specification defines an XML document as a well-formed text, meaning that it satisfies a list of syntax rules provided in the specification.
Some key points in the fairly lengthy list include:
1. The document contains only properly encoded legal Unicode characters.
2. None of the special syntax characters such as < and & appear except when performing their markup-delineation roles.
3. The start-tag, end-tag, and empty-element tag that delimit elements are correctly nested, with none missing and none overlapping.
4. Tag names are case-sensitive; the start-tag and end-tag must match exactly.
5. Tag names cannot contain any of the characters !"#$%&'()*+,/;< = >?@[\]^`{|}~, nor a space character, and cannot begin with "-", ".", or a numeric digit.
6. A single root element contains all the other elements.