By and large, tags make up the majority of XML markup.
A tag is pretty much anything between a < sign and a > sign
that is not inside a comment, or a CDATA section
(we'll discuss these in a bit). In short, it is pretty much the same as
an HTML tag.
The rules governing tags are a little more complex than those governing
character data. Let's take a look at them....
Gimme Something to Work With
For one, all well-formed XML document must have at least one element!
Watch Your Case
Also, care must be taken to assure that you maintain case within a tag set.
In other words, the tags <HELLO>, <hello> would not be
equivalent as they would in HTML.
End Your Tags Right
Further, besides being spelled and capitalized the same way as their
start tag counterparts, end tags should include an initial forward
slash "/". Thus in most cases, a start tag of <HELLO>, should
be closed with a </HELLO>.
I say sometimes, because in certain circumstances, you can bypass the
end tag. Specifically, if you need to use a tag that has no content,
you may use a single start tag with a trailing forward slash such as:
<HR/>
Nest Properly
Also, note that XML elements may contain other elements but the nesting
of elements must be correct. Thus the following example is wrong:
<CONTACT>
<NAME>Frank Lee
<EMAIL>flee@flee.com
</CONTACT></NAME></EMAIL>
Instead, it should be:
<CONTACT>
<NAME>Frank Lee</NAME>
<EMAIL>flee@flee.com</EMAIL>
</CONTACT>
Name Your Tags Legally
Tags should begin with either a letter, an underscore (_) or a colon (:)
followed by some combination of letters, numbers, periods (.), colons,
underscores, or hyphens (-) but no white space, with the exception that
no tags should begin with any form of "xml". It is also a good idea to
not use colons as the first character in a tag name even if it is legal.
Using a colon first could be confusing.
Further, though the XML 1.0 standard specifies names of any length,
actual XML processors may limit the length of markup names.
Define Valid Attributes
Finally, tags may specify any number of supporting attributes. Attributes,
that must not duplicate in any one tag, specify a name/value pair
delimited by equal (=) sign in which the value is delimited by
quotation marks such as:
<SHOE STYLE = "SPECTATOR" COLORING = "BLACK_AND_WHITE">
In this case, STYLE and COLORING are attributes of the SHOE tag and
"SPECTATOR" is the value of the STYLE attribute and "BLACK_AND_WHITE"
is the value of the COLORING attribute.
Attribute names follow the same conventions as tag names (valid characters,
case sensitivity, etc). Values, on the other hand, may include include
white spaces, punctuation and may include entity references when necessary.
