
XML Syntaxes • 91
Let us try to find out answers to these questions.
1. Are we trying to represent main data or metadata?
There is always some confusion about what should be called as main data and what is to be termed as metadata.
The general definition states that information is main data, and information about information is metadata.
Based on this, the general design concept is that all main data should be represented in XML as elements, and
all metadata needs to be modelled as attributes.
This brings us to an interesting question: what is main data and metadata in a given context? Well,
it depends! Main data in one situation could become metadata ...