CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xmlterminology
jimjim
jimjim

Reputation: 2503

What is the term for xml elements of type <Something />

What is the terminology for an element like <Something /> ? I called it self terminating element, but then it only seemed natural (lly wrong maybe).

Also is there a term to distinguish a simple element 

<Something>abc</Something>

from

<ns3:Something>yxz</ns3:Something>

Upvotes: 0

Views: 40

Answers (1)

Michael Kay
Michael Kay

Reputation: 163587

The syntactic form <something/> is correctly called an empty-element tag.

Note that this is really a property of the tag, not of the element; the element represented by <something/> is indistinguishable from the element represented by <something></something>, so by the time you move from the world of tags to the world of elements, the distinction is lost.

The element <x>aaa</x> (as opposed to <p:x>aaa</p:x>) is probably best referred to as a no-namespace element -- provided that there's no default namespace in scope on some containing element. But you won't find that term in the Namespaces specification; the closest it gets is "an element with an expanded name whose namespace name has no value", which is hopelessly unwieldy.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions