Standard Generalized Markup Language

The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) is a metalanguage in which one can define markup languages for documents. SGML is a descendant of IBM's Generalized Markup Language (GML), developed in the 1960s by Charles Goldfarb, Edward Mosher and Raymond Lorie (whose surname initials were used by Goldfarb to make up the term GML[1]). SGML and GML should not be confused with the Game Maker scripting language, or with the Geography Markup Language developed by the Open GIS Consortium.

SGML provides a variety of markup syntaxes that can be used for many applications. By changing the SGML Declaration one does not even need to use "angle brackets" although they are the norm – part of the concrete reference syntax defined in the standard (GML used a colon to introduce a tag, a period to end it, and 'e' to indicate an end tag: :xmp.thus:exmp., and SGML is flexible enough to accept that grammar too).

Original uses

SGML was originally designed to enable the sharing of machine-readable documents in large projects in government, legal and industry, which have to remain readable for several decades—a very long time in information technology. It has also been used extensively in the printing and publishing industries, but its complexity has prevented its widespread application for small-scale general-purpose use.

Primarily intended for text and database publishing, one of its first major applications was the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which was and is wholly marked up in SGML.

Derivatives


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