[tcs-lc] Question about XML attribute vs. element

[Bob Morris]

In general, some of this comes down to taste and practice. Among the 
differences are that attributes (a) must be unique within a given 
element (b)must be of simple type (technical term; in practice, it means 
no structure) (c) have indeterminate order, no matter what the order 
appears to be in the file. The last is a slight oversimplification but 
you should expect that applications need not deliver attributes in the 
order they are in the file, and may even rearrange them without being 
justly accused of changing the file.

Almost anything by Elliotte Rusty Harold is worth reading. See 
http://www.cafeconleche.org/slides/sd2004west/xmlfundamentals/
for discussions of this and other questions and see
http://www.cafeconleche.org/ for lots of other neat stuff about XML 
technologies.

Bob



Richard Pyle wrote:
> What is the basic rule for when to designate something as an attribute,
> rather than a separate element, in an XML schema?
> 
> Specifically, I'm thinking about "NomenCode" in TCS v095.  Right now, it
> appears as an element within NameDetailed.  But why couldn't/shouldn't it be
> represented instead as an enumerated attribute of NameDetailed?
> 
> Aloha,
> Rich
> 
> 
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-- 
Robert A. Morris
Professor of Computer Science
UMASS-Boston
http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram
phone (+1)617 287 6466