wrote in message news:1041272569.716.0{at}tkdsoftware.com...
> I am hoping that Chris Cranford will pop up in here. He is supposed to be
> VERY GOOD with XML. I think he could guide us on that. My first thought
are
> that if a child doesn't have any attributes then why not make it an
> attribute of the "parent".

See below...

>  >> number=
>
>  s> Definately number, it identifies the node.  It doesn't matter for the
>  s> rest, except for readability (IMO children are more readable than
>  s> attributes).
>
> I agree with this.

Attribute Example:    
Element Example:      

Attributes are typically used to pass data (e.g. to XML parser) that is
irrelevant for users, but canbe used to manipulate the data element.

People typically try to "avoid" using attributes because:

 1. They cannot contain multiple values and are less flexible.
 2. Attributes are not expandable (for future changes)
 3. Attributes cannot describe structures (like child elements can)
 4. Attribute values can not be tested against DTD.

The idea behind XML was to provide a means to describe a document's
"structure" and be able to validate an XML against a DTD or XML Schema
to determine if the format is valid.

Hope this helps.
Chris



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