Question

In XML, how should a list be represented?

With an enclosing list entity:

<person>     <firstname>Joe</firstname>     <lastname>Bloggs</lastname>      <children>         <child .../>         <child .../>         <child .../>         <child .../>         <child .../>     </children> </person> 

Or without:

<person>     <firstname>Joe</firstname>     <lastname>Bloggs</lastname>      <child .../>     <child .../>     <child .../>     <child .../>     <child .../> </person> 

Answer 1

For extensibility, I would use the first solution (the one with the children node). If you ever wish to store any data about all of the children then you have a convenient node on which to place attributes.