Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML

Item 12. Store Metadata in Attributes

There's a recurring mild flame war on the xml-dev mailing list about when one should use attributes and when one should use elements. There's a slightly hotter one about whether one should ever use attributes at all. The bottom line is that it's really up to you. Do what feels right for your application. Most developers prefer to use attributes for metadata as opposed to the data itself, but this is a very rough rule of thumb at best. Of course, what's data and what's metadata depends heavily on who is reading your documents for what purpose.

One way to determine whether information is metadata or not is to ask yourself whether a person reading the text would want to see it. For example, consider the following ...