Java™ APIs for XML Kick Start

Declaring Attributes

Attributes are a mechanism with which you can provide further information about an element. You declare the attributes for an element in a DTD after declaring the element. The attribute declaration is of the following form:

<!ATTLIST element_name attribute_definition>

where attribute_definition takes the following form:

						attribute_name attribute_type [default_declaration]

The attribute definition provides the following information:

• The name of the attribute

• The type of the attribute

• Default value for the attribute, or whether the attribute is required

Attribute Name

The name of the attribute is self-explanatory. Attribute names can be anything as long as they follow the naming rules that were described in the element declaration ...