Note: The XML Core Working Group was closed in 2016.
This is the public web page for the XML Core Working Group, part of the W3C XML Activity. There is also a member-only page with telephone numbers for conference calls, and other internal details.
This page only contains general information and therefore isn't updated on a regular basis. For latest information on the Working Group activities, look at the agenda and minutes of the teleconferences.
The XML Core Working Group publishes the formal specification for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and mantains errata for that document.
The XML Core Working Group also works on several other specifications.
The XML Core Working Group operates according to this charter. You can get involved by joining the W3C or by reading working drafts listed on this page and sending your comments to the addresses given in each draft. The Working Group must respond to all public comments, and feedback from implementors and users is welcomed. The Working Group particularly welcomes feedback about difficulties in writing programs that conform to the specifications or about errors in the specifications.
The XML Core Working Group conducts much of its business in public via a mailing list whose archive is available to anyone.
Please do not write to us asking for help learning about XML. See the Main XML page for pointers to tutorials or visit your local bookshop or newsagent for books and magazines.
The XML Core Working Group is chartered under a Royalty-Free basis under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. The XML Core Working Group Patent Policy Status tabulates the documents covered by this policy and the status of disclosures etc. made by WG members with respect to those documents. Earlier publications are covered by the W3C Current Patent Practice and the members have made public IPR disclosures that are compatible with this.
The XML Core Working Group is responsible for several specifications; some of these are published as W3C Recommendations, and some are still drafts. If you implement a draft, you must not claim to have implemented a formal Recommendation (nor a standard). You should not assume this page reflects the very latest status of work in progress: see above for the best places to look for up-to-date information.
Specifications are aimed at people writing software to implement them; they are not tutorials.
Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth Edition) W3C Recommendation 26 November 2008, Tim Bray, Jean Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Eve Maler, François Yergeau eds.
There is also a page for errata.
The Fifth Edition supersedes the original XML 1.0 Recommendation published on 10th February 1998.
XML 1.1 (Second Edition), W3C Recommendation, 16 August 2006, Tim Bray, Jean Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Eve Maler, François Yergeau, John Cowan, ed.
There is also a page for errata.
The Second Edition supersedes the original XML 1.1 Recommendation published on 4 February 2004.
XML 1.1 updates XML so that it no longer depends on the specific Unicode version: you can always use the latest. It also adds checking of normalization, and follows the Unicode line ending rules more closely.
You are encouraged to create or generate XML 1.0 documents if you do not need the new features in XML 1.1; XML Parsers are expected to understand both XML 1.0 and XML 1.1.
Namespaces in XML (Second Edition), W3C Recommendation, 16 August 2006, Tim Bray, Dave Hollander, Andrew Layman, Richard Tobin, eds.
There is also a page of errata.
The Second Edition supersedes the original Namespaces in XML published on 14 January 1999.
Namespaces in XML 1.1 (Second Edition), W3C Recommendation, 16 August 2006, Andrew Layman, Tim Bray, Dave Hollander, Richard Tobin, eds.
There is also a page for errata.
The Second Edition supersedes the original Namespaces in XML 1.1 published on 4th February 2004.
Namespaces 1.1 incorporates all three published errata for Namespaces 1.0. In addition it makes two substantive changes:
Note also that the Namespaces specification says nothing about what might (or might not) happen if one were to attempt to dereference a URI/IRI used to identify a namespace.
XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0 (Second Edition) W3C Recommendation, 15 November 2006. Jonathan Marsh, David Orchard, Daniel Veillard.
Note that in a significant change from the first CR version of XInclude,
the REC uses a separate attribute for the optional XPointer rather than a
fragment identifier as part of the value of the href attribute.
The Second Edition supersedes the original XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0 published on 20 December 2004.
XML Infoset 2nd Edition W3C Recommendation First published 24 October 2001, revised 4 February 2004, John Cowan, Richard Tobin
If any errata are found, they will be published as W3C XML Information Set Errata.
xml:id W3C Recommendation, 9 September 2005. Jonathan Marsh, Daniel Veillard, Norman Walsh.
There is no active work on this document due to a lack of feedback. If you feel we should be doing more work in this area, please let us know using the email address for comments given in the specification.
XML Fragment Interchange (Candidate Recommendation as of 12 February 2001) Paul Grosso, Daniel Veillard.
XML Base (Second Edition) W3C Recommendation, 28 January 2009, Jonathan Marsh, Richard Tobin.
This document was originally produced by the XML Linking Working Group and was transferred to the XML Core Working Group.
The Second Edition supersedes the original XML Base published on 27 June 2001.
Associating Style Sheets with XML documents W3C Recommendation James Clark
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) Conformance Test Suites are primarily aimed at implementors of XML processors. Currently this includes tests for
There is also an XML Inclusions (XInclude) Conformance Test Suite.
Originally created
April 1997; send feedback on this page to Liam Quin
(W3C team contact)