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XML documents are composed of elements.

An element consists of:

• An opening tag, which:
  • has a name,
  • is contained within angle brackets (< >)
• Element data (content)
• A closing tag, which:
  • begins with an angle bracket, followed by a slash
  • uses the same name as the opening tag
  • ends with a closing angle bracket

Element (or tag) names in XML are case-sensitive.

For example:

<author>James Joyce</author>

<para>
This is a paragraph, which may be
continued over several
lines.
</para>

The closing tag is required.  However, if the element is such that it will never enclose content, then the element may be specified to be self-closing. For example:

<over-21/>

<br />

<hr/>