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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-14T10:39:55+00:00

supposing O have these two equivalent (at least they are supposed to be) XML

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supposing O have these two equivalent (at least they are supposed to be) XML schemas. The actual XML will eventually be parsed by C#. I think the second way is ‘more correct’ since I will get attributes as actual attrbutes, instead of child elements, correct? 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<switch>
  <switch_name>switch1</switch_name>
  <software_version>1</software_version>
  <vendor>Cisco</vendor>
  <ip_address>1.1.1.1</ipaddress>
  <linecard>
    <model_type>12345</model_type>
 <fcport>
 <slot> 1</slot>
 <port> 1</port>
 <speed>4</speed>
 </fcport>

  </linecard>
</switch>

<switch>
 <switch name="switch1" version="1" vendor="Cisco" ip_address="1.1.1.1">
     <linecard model="12345">
  <fcport slot="1" port="1" speed="4">
</fcport>
<linecard>
</switch>
</xml>
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Neither one is strictly more “correct” than the other, both will work for your example. Neither breaks any rules.

    That said, I think I agree with W3Schools on this one, in that data should go inside child elements rather than attributes. Especially things like IP addresses just FEEL like data that should be a child element rather than an attribute. Attributes I typically use for metadata, such as auto generated IDs.

    This is especially true if you later want to account for expansion — for example, what if you want to associate multiple IPs? With child elements you can just add another element, but with attributes you have to come up with a new attribute name for each addition (ip1, ip2, ip3…).

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