XML Elements And The Way To Create Them

Elements are the key foundations of XML and is also one of several benefits XML contains above other languages. In XML you can create your very own element tags to suit your own needs.

With other languages, like HTML or PHP, you can use only predefined tags which are specific to that language. In HTML for example one could only include body elements inside the tag and header elements in the tag. This could be hard as well as time intensive and means you need to know the language and syntax as well as where it goes to generate web pages.

This is where XML is unique, you can make your own personal elements and even name these to match your own needs, getting entirely possible for newbie’s to grasp and apply XML.

So what are XML elements? Fundamentally elements are labels that are specified to parts of data or information. To illustrate, let’s say you want to produce a catalogue of all your household items for insurance purposes.

You might split things by room or space and after that further sub divide by value etc. In XML the parser will be looking at the structure as opposed to the names of the elements, in HTML it's the other way round, the titles tend to be more crucial for the parsing to work.

Though XML is much more concentrated on structure, as opposed to naming conventions, you'll still have to follow fundamental recommendations when creating elements. The first element is considered as the root; the root element includes all the other elements inside it, a bit like a folder contains sub folders and files.

Following the root, the following element known as the parent and inside the parent are child elements, not all parent elements must have child element, it is at your discretion and is dependent on how and just what you intend to develop your XML for.

The primary factor to creating a XML file that can be easily parsed is with the organisation, you'll want to create your elements to make sure they add up from a structural perspective.

For instance if you're a building a stock list of your items, it would make more sense to have products as your root element along with the categories as the parent and next individual category products as the child elements.

Working with a well laid and common sense structure is going to pay off in the long term when you need to carry out updates or parsing as all the elements will effortlessly fit into place.

As well as element framework and naming, make sure that you retain the following easy tips in mind also.

Every single element tag demands a opening and closing syntax ie and , when you forget you'll receive an error message whenever you try to validate or parse your xml file.

Take the time to organize your element names sensibly and rationally. Name your tags in a way that is sensible to you.

Root element

Parent element

Child element

Two parent elements for the product stock list can have child tags named ‹product›. The fact is, parent names may also be similar.

Product - root element

Item - parent element

Item - parent element

So that’s a rapid straightforward look at xml and how to write an xml file, to study more advanced material, you can search Google or look at this xml tutorial.