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HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <search>
      <p ns="0" title="Julie&#039;s Cars" snippet="...u have more power and less wasted energy, but at the price of higher heat  &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; more wear and tear on the rest of the car as the result, and thus the motor&#10;" size="14836" wordcount="2612" timestamp="2007-10-19T18:31:01Z" />
      <p ns="0" title="Family" snippet="...g at 2am or at two years old. Perhaps it will be clearer which is the true &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; by the end of this post. Perhaps not.&#10;" size="10014" wordcount="1796" timestamp="2007-11-29T22:36:41Z" />
      <p ns="0" title="Upgrade to Lucid" snippet="* ldap appears off, but that might have been me.  I&#039;ve been &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;meaning&lt;/span&gt; to turn it off for awhile now.&#10;" size="3366" wordcount="567" timestamp="2010-05-01T19:00:39Z" />
      <p ns="0" title="Maytag Neptune washer won&#039;t spin" snippet="!&lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;Meaning&lt;/span&gt;&#10;" size="6357" wordcount="980" timestamp="2013-10-16T20:33:11Z" />
    </search>
  </query>
</api>