XML attributes are normally used to describe XML elements, or to provide additional information about elements. From HTML you can remember this construct: <IMG SRC="mycomputer.gif">. In this HTML example SRC is an attribute to the IMG element. The SRC attribute provides additional information about the element.

Attributes are always contained within the start tag of an element. Here are some examples:

HTML examples:

<img src="mycomputer.gif">
<a href="demo.asp">

XML examples:

<file type="gif">
<person id="3344">

Usually, or most common, attributes are used to provide information that is not a part of the content of the XML document. Did you understand that? Here is another way to express that: Often attribute data is more important to the XML parser than to the reader. Did you understand it now? Anyway, in the example above, the person id is a counter value that is irrelevant to the reader, but important to software that wants to manipulate the person element.