Learn English – “Interchange” and “exchange”

word-choice

I was wondering if interchange and exchange are equivalent and can be used interchangeably or exchangeably (okay this is an example already)?
What are the differences between their prefixes, inter- and ex-?

It is common for XML to be used in interchanging data over the Internet.

Best Answer

Interchanging data would be swapping one piece of data for another (changing their positions). It is more specific than exchanging data, which just means that data is going back and forth. You should say "exchange" here.

In general, data is not interchanged, because what you send is a copy. There are situations where interchange might be correct (eg: atomically swapping two memory locations, so what was in A is now in B, and vice versa) but even here "exchange" or "swap" is more common terminology.