[__pThrow]

I've never understood what problem XML solves.

Does XML make a file understandable by a developer in superior ways to other formats? Not especially.

Does the use of XML make error recovery from a partially borked file possible? Not really.

What problem is actually solved by XML (that other formats don't also "solve" ... and better?)

[dykesa]

I am a database guy. Typically I'm against XML (especially in a database) however, I have a scenario where there is a test system and there are some standard bits of information (test description, stats, etc.) that all the tests have but they all come out in a different structure meaning: I have 4500 queries that test different aspects of our data-set and they all come out with different columns.

They have different columns because it deals with about 600 different tables and the output is what is relevant to the test. I have decided that in this instance, I want to capture all of the results in a single table so that they are centralized. XML solves this issue for me. I can grab the results in XML, and insert them into a centralized table where they can be reviewed later.

TL;DR XML can solve some data structure issues where you don't always know the final output until it shows up.