What's the correct use of XML?

[Michiel]

Hi,

I'm planning on using an XML-file as input for a php-script. While designing the XML-file I came across 2 different ways to store the data. Method 1 using just xml-tags and method 2 using attributes inside the tags.

Method 1:

<cookbook>
 <recipe>
  <id>
   1
  </id>
  <name>
   Spaghetti Carbonara
  <name>
  <ingredients>
   etc.
   etc.
  </ingredients>
 </recipe>
</cookbook> 

Method 2:

<cookbook>
 <recipe id="1" name="Spaghetti Carbonara">
  <ingredients>
   etc.
   etc.
  </ingredients>
 </recipe>
</cookbook> 

What is the correct (or recommended) way to use XML for data storage?

Thanx! Michiel

[Alex Vincent]

Personal preference. Either one works.

That's the beauty of XML. It doesn't dictate a specific format for your document. A <!DOCTYPE > declaration tag specifies the Document Type Definition (DTD) used to do that.

It really depends on what's easiest for you.

[[email protected]]

The great thing about XML is that it's all about semantics & metadata, but this can often be a problem too...

As a general rule of thumb, if something is only going to exist once within a given element, it should be an attribute instead of a separate child element, but there's no hard & fast rules - it's completely up to you.