VoiceXML 2.0 is an extensible markup language (XML) for the creation of automated speech recognition (ASR) and interactive voice response (IVR) applications. Based on the XML tag/attribute format, the VoiceXML syntax involves enclosing instructions (items) within a tag structure in the following manner:

< element_name attribute_name="attribute_value">

......contained items......

< /element_name>

A VoiceXML application consists of one or more text files called documents. These document files are denoted by a ".vxml" file extension and contain the various VoiceXML instructions for the application. It is recommended that the first instruction in any document to be seen by the interpreter be the XML version tag:

< ?xml version="1.0"?>

The vxml tags should then enclose the remainder of the document's instructions. Within this tag, the version attribute should be set equal to the version of VoiceXML being used ("2.0" in the present case) as follows:

< vxml version="2.0">