The international Edifact EDI standards are also being considered. Users can create a purchase order for a supplier in XML, defining and using , and tags to indicate what they want to buy. At the receiving end the supplier's software could automatically extract these tagged elements and pass the information directly into an order entry system. But XML brings other benefits. EDI documents will be able to carry not only transaction data but also routing, work-flow, and processing information.
Much work still needs to be done.
XML files consist of simple mark-up, or tags, which define an element hierarchy. Elements act as containers for other elements and text, to an unlimited depth. HTML users will be very familiar with this syntax.