XML Elements
XML Elements
- XML elements are represented by tags. Xml elements behave as a container to store all the text, other elements, attributes and all media objects.
- There is no limitation to use elements in Xml.
- Elements usually consist of an opening tag and a closing tag, but they are consider as a single tag.
- Opening tags consist of <, followed by the element name, and ending with >.
- Closing tags are the same but have a forward slash inserted between the less than symbol and the element name.
Syntax
<tag>Data</tag>- Empty elements doesn’t have the closing tag. They are closed by inserting a forward slash before the greater than symbol.
Syntax for Empty Element
<tag/>
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XML Elements Rules
- All the XML elements must have closing tag:
- In HTML some tags don't need to be closed.
- In XML however, you must close all tags except empty tag.
- The opening and closing tags must be similar except the closing tag contains a forward slash before the element name.
Example for opening/closing tags
<child>Data</child>
Example for empty elements
<child attribute="value" />
- The XML elements are case sensitive:
- All tags must be written using the correct case. XML sees <tutorial> as a different tag to <Tutorial>
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- XML Elements Must Be Nested Properly
- You can place elements inside other elements but you need to ensure each.
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- XML Element Naming Rules
- Element names can contain any character (including letters and numbers).
- Element names must not contain spaces
- Element names must not begin with a number or punctuation character (for example a comma or semi-colon etc.,)
- Element names must not start with the letters xml (whether lowercase, uppercase, or mixed case)
- Element names shouldn’t use a colon (:) because colon is reserved for another purpose.