XML infoset (XML information set)

The XML information set, also called the XML Infoset, is a specification for an abstract model of an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document. The specification contains a consistent set of definitions for use in other specifications relevant to the data in XML documents.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) adopted the Second Edition of the XML Infoset recommendation in February of 2004.

The specification describes the data model for an XML document as a set of information items. According to the Second Edition recommendation, the XML Infoset can contain the following information items:

• documents
• elements within documents
• attributes of documents
• document processing instructions
• unexpanded entity references
• characters
• comments
• Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
• unparsed entities
• notations
• namespaces