Relay protection setting plays key role for power system safe operation. The proper setting calculation and on-site verification is the basis of relay protection for the security of power grid. A general settings markup language for relay protection is proposed based on extensible markup language（XML）. Through the analysis of inner configuration model of relay protection， a semantic description method of relay protection settings， which makes protective apparatus semantic matching with automatic setting calculation system and auto-test system， is given. At last， an application example with general settings markup language is provided.