XML Formatter & Validator
Format, beautify, and validate your XML documents online.
What is XML Formatting?
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) formatting transforms compact or poorly structured XML into a readable format with proper indentation. This makes it easier to understand, debug, and maintain XML documents used in configuration files, APIs, and data exchange.
Why Format XML?
- Readability: Properly indented XML is much easier to read and navigate.
- Debugging: Find errors faster when the structure is visible.
- Version Control: Formatted XML produces cleaner diffs in Git.
- Documentation: Well-formatted XML is essential for technical docs.
XML Validation
This tool also validates your XML as you format it. If there are syntax errors like mismatched tags or invalid characters, you will see an error message with details about what went wrong.
Common XML Use Cases
- Configuration Files: Many apps use XML for settings (web.config, pom.xml).
- SOAP APIs: Enterprise web services often use XML messages.
- RSS/Atom Feeds: News and blog feeds are XML-based.
- Microsoft Office: DOCX, XLSX files contain XML internally.
- Android: Layout and resource files use XML format.
XML vs JSON
While JSON has become more popular for APIs, XML is still widely used where document structure, namespaces, and attributes are important. XML supports schemas (XSD) for validation and XSLT for transformations.