Introduction to XML

Abstract

So when should you use attributes and when should you use elements? Well, that is largely up to you, but convention usually says that when you have descriptive information, it should go as an attribute. Conversely, information that is part of the data should be an element. In the above examples it makes more sense for us to put the title and author as attributes than it does as children, or elements. This is because those two pieces of information are directly tied to the book. If we were to add chapters to the example, then it would make sense for those chapters to be child elements of the book element.