How do you chose what to make #PCDATA and what to make an attribute? Here's a rule: If it is data meant to be displayed or processed by the application, use PCDATA. Only use tags for meta-data (data about the data). Here's an example: Suppose you have some text to be displayed by an application. If the user clicks on the text, you want the application to either make a noise or not. Do it like this: ] > Here is the text to be displayed. Whether the text beeps or not is NOT displayed -- that's why it's an attribute. References: * http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/elementsAndAttrs.html * http://java.sun.com/xml/docs/tutorial/overview/4_design.html This page might be more accurately titled XmlPcDataVsXmlCdata ---- That guideline works fine if the xml is document based. More and more, xml is being used as a data structure. Our rule is that basic data types and typecodes are attributes, objects map map to elements. Elements that define relationships wrap subelements. IOW, --JackBolles ---- CategoryXml CategoryPattern CategoryComparisons XmlPattern ExtensibleMarkupLanguage