What are XML elements?

An XML element is everything from the XML element’s starting tag to the XML element’s ending tag.

An element can contain:

• Starting tag
• Attributes
• Text
• Closing tag
• other elements
• or a combination of all things mentioned above.

Example:

<author category=”literature”> sameed </author>

In this example;

<author> is the starting tag

sameed is the text

Category is the attribute/property

Literature is the value of the attribute.

</author> is the closing of the tag.

XML Naming Rules:

• Element name is case-sensitive:
• Element name must start with a underscore or alphabets.
• Element name cannot start with the letters XML/xML/xml/Xml, etc.
• Element name cannot contain spaces
• Element name can contain digits,  letter, hyphens, periods and underscore. 
• Element name can have any name except xml.