title: Why does the default Apache XML config file parse?
body: <p>I noticed this default Apache configuration in Ubuntu server:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;Directory /&gt;
      Options FollowSymLinks
      AllowOverride None
  &lt;/Directory&gt;
  &lt;Directory /var/www/&gt;
      Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
      AllowOverride None
      Order allow,deny
      allow from all
  &lt;/Directory&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Note the <code>&lt;Directory /&gt;</code> line which specifies that the directory being configured is <code>/</code> (Compare with <code>&lt;Directory /var/www/&gt;</code>). However, in XML ending a tag with the <code>/</code> character specifies a a self-closing tag.</p>
  
  <p>Should I therefore conclude that the default Apache configuration just looks like XML, but is not meant to be XML. It also has no doctype and supports <code>#</code> comments.</p>