>> I though the point of using a well defined markup language was exactly that it imposed a clear structure on your data. A clear structure can be defined with

>> I though the point of using a well defined markup language was exactly that it imposed a clear structure on your data. A clear structure can be defined with an XML Schema Definition (XSD) document: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Schema_(W3C) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Schema_(W3C) An XML Schema Definition defines the structure and allowable content for a given XML document and allows XML data to be programmatically validated to ensure it adheres to the specified format and content. >> In another sense, xml gives no options: your data is going to live in a string. This is true. XML is inherently text-based. There are options for binary data formats depending on your needs.