A '''markup language''' is a [data format%|%text format] adding processing instructions to
plain text, usually for the purpose of either of rendering or logical
organization.



** Description **

A markup language might denote some ''semantic'' role of a certain string of the
text, for example, ''document title'', ''chapter delimiter'', ''paragraph
delimiter'', etc. 

Another common type of markup is '''presentation''' markup.  This
is the type of markup we use on this wiki.  With presentation
markup, you indicate what special actions should be taken during
transformation of the text from ''raw'' text to the form presented
to the user.  Here on the wiki, we can
   * mark words as ''italic'' (surround then with double apostrophes)
   * mark words as '''bold'''  (surround them with triple apostrophes)
   * insert horizontal rules (four dashes in a line only)
   * create bulleted lists (start line with 3 spaces, asterisk, space, then your text)

and more.

Typically, if one has a semantic markup, one also has some sort of
means to also transform the semantical parsed text into a preferred
presentation format.  However, the opposite is not often true - if
one only has presentation markup, it is quite hard to generate an
accurate semantical tree of the document, unless the user takes
great care to use presentation and content in such a way that one
can somehow derive semantical meaning from the text.

----

These distinctions are sometimes summarized as being between ''procedural markup''
and ''declarative markup''.



** Markup Languages **

   [HTML]:   

   [TeX]:   

   [SGML]:   

   [XML]:   





** See Also **

   [lightweight markup languages]:   

   [Simple Markup]:   a simple presentation markup language.

   [Structured TeXt]:   a generic name for a classe of simple markup lanauges

   [Template and Macro processing]:   

   [Tcl as a markup language]:   

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