Processing instructions
Processing instructions (PIs) enable you to provide information
to the application that uses the processed XML. Processing
instructions are enclosed in <? and ?> delimiters and must have
a name, called the target, followed by optional data that is processed
by the application that uses the XML. Each application that uses the
XML must process the targets that it recognizes and ignore any other
targets.
The XML declaration at
the beginning of an XML document is an example of a processing
instruction. You cannot use the string xml as the name of any other
processing instruction target.
Example
In this example, usething is the name of the target, and
thing=this.thing is the data to be processed by the receiving
application:
|
1 |
<?usething thing=this.thing?> |