A general-purpose markup language is a markup language that is used for more than one purpose or situation. Other, more specialized domain-specific markup languages are often based upon these languages. For example, HTML 4.1 and earlier are domain-specific markup languages (for webpages), and are based on the syntax of SGML, which is a general-purpose markup language.

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Notable general-purpose markup languages include:

• ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One)
• EBML
• LML – general-purpose markup language for expressing markdown, variables, and expressions for machine-readable and executable legal documentation
• GML – the predecessor of SGML
• SGML – a predecessor of XML
• XML – a stripped-down form of SGML
• YAML
• GLML – General-purpose Legal Markup Language

• Comparison of document markup languages
• General-purpose language
• General-purpose modeling
• General-purpose programming language
• S-expression