All questions are saved in TriviaML, which is an open, standardized XML format.

Here is a small sample:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
<!DOCTYPE triviaml SYSTEM "triviaml.dtd">
<triviaml title="Movie Trivia"
        author="Philipp Lenssen">

    <trivia>
        <question>Who's portrayed here</question>
        <answer>Al Pacino</answer>
        <hint>Starred in "Heat"</hint>
        <image>al_pacino.gif</image>
    </trivia>

    <trivia>
        <question>Who directed "Nosferatu"</question>
        <answer>[F.W.] Murnau</answer>
    </trivia>

</triviaml>

There could be many implementations to make use of this TriviaML document. TriviaML doesn't know any of the implementation details but seperates into two different types (This value is included in the root-element "type" attribute):

• free-text (the user freely inputs an answer) - Default
• multiple-choice (the user chooses one of many provided answers)

Root Attributes

The following optional attributes are possible in the root element:

Name	Explanation	Example
title	The title of the Trivia set	Academy Award Winners
author	The author of the Trivia set	Philipp Lenssen
email	The email of the author of the Trivia set	info@opentrivia.com
homepage	The homepage of the author of the Trivia set	http://opentrivia.com
date	The (ISO) date when this Trivia set was last updated	2002-12-24
category	The category of this trivia set. Please refer to the Categories	entertainment/ movie/ awards/ oscar
type	As explained above: if the type of Trivia is intended as free-text or multiple-choice	multiple-choice

Trivia element

Each set of TriviaML can include an unlimited number of "trivia"-elements. Each trivia-element includes the following:

Node name	Explanation	Example data	Quantity
question	The question to be asked the player. Question mark is optional	Who directed "City Lights"	One
answer	The question to be asked the player. The Question mark is optional	Charl[y|ie] Chaplin	One or more
hint	A hint to be given to the player (in case a hint is requested)	Middle name is "Spencer"	None or more
image	File path of image to be displayed	al_pacino.gif	One or none
music	File path of music to be played	german_anthem.mid	One or none

Note: Many details of how the TriviaML file is made us of are dependent on the implementation. (The implementation provided on this site is just one of many possible ones.) For example, without you explicitly providing a hint, this site's implementation of a TriviaML game creates a hint by giving the player some starting letters of the solution.

Answer syntax: There are already many ways that can be provided by the implementation to make sure your answer matches a well-intended player answer. Additionally, you can use the following syntax (here to the question, Who directed "City Lights"):
Charly Chaplin
or Charly [Spencer] Chaplin
or Charl[y|ie|es] [|Spencer|S.] Chaplin

As you can see, everything enclosed in square brackets is an option, and multiple options are seperated by "|".