Both elements and attributes have been designed to have a Name and a Value.
Elements can be parents of other elements and/or attributes and can be repeated within the same level of an XML document. They also usually have start and end tags. An element would look like:
Attributes consist of a named pair attached to an element start-tag. An example of how an attribute is:
Attribute values must be enclosed in single or double quotes. Attribute names must be unique within a single element occurrence.
The decision to use Elements versus Attributes is mostly an architectural one; however, there are some key differences between Elements and Attributes:
1. Elements can occur more than once (repeating) within the same level, while attributes can only appear once within the same level, example:
It is okay to have:
But it would be invalid to have:
2. Elements can be defined to be in a certain order, while attributes can appear in any order.
If you would like to get some extra details on this matter, please see visit one of the following web-pages:
http://www.itworld.com/nl/xml_prac/12132001/
http://xml.coverpages.org/elementsAndAttrs.html