XML (or eXtensible Markup Language) is a generic standard for creating a custom markup language. In embedded programming it provides a highly compatible and future-proofed solution to serialising data.

We used XML on a project for Silvertree Engineering. The project involved a number of teams of engineers and using XML ensured compatibility because of its widely understood format.

Another example of the portability of XML, is that Adobe Flash has built-in facilities for communicating using XML over a TCP port. They refer to this as an XML Socket. We often make use of this facility when we embed a Flash movie on a Microchip PIC, because an XML socket is easy to implement on a PIC and easy to implement in Flash, which keeps development costs low, but gives you a very powerful solution.

• XML socket
• Interfacing Adobe Flash to Microchip PIC
• Data serialisation