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What are attributes in XML?

Tags in XML hold content. The tags can also have attributes as a way of holding simple data. Attributes contain data related to specific elements in key-value pairs.

Attributes appear in the start tag:

Example

<tag key="value">content</tag>

In the above example:

  • <tag is the start tag.
  • key is the attribute.
  • value is the value of the attribute.
  • content is the content between the start and end tags.
  • /tag> is the end tag.

Example

<fileSize unit="kB">34.6</fileSize>

In the above example, the attribute is named unit and its value is kB.

Using attributes to describe song data

Let's say we have the following XML code to describe song data:

<song>
    <title>XML Waltz</title>
    <artist>The Extensible Extenders</artist>
    <musicians>
        <musician>Sally Flute</musician>
        <musician>Derek Windpipe</musician>
    </musicians>
</song>

In the example above, the first tag is for <song> and contains multiple tags nested beneath it. We can restructure this data using attributes:

<song title="XML Waltz" artist="The Extensible Extenders">
    <musicians>
        <musician name="Sally Flute"/>
        <musician name="Derek Windpipe"/>
    </musicians>
</song>
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