Example: XML Element Names
In XML, element names can be originated and changed to reflect the type of information contained in the document. This level of flexibility may cause problems if separate documents encode different kinds of information, but use the same identifiers for the element names.
For example, the following sample document defines the basic semantics for a "person" document and a "book" document. Both of these use a "title" element, but the meaning is not the same:
For an application to allow a user to correctly query for and retrieve the "title" element, it must provide a way to unambiguously specify which title element is being requested. Failure to do so would give rise to a naming collision on the title element (as well as any other elements that shared this unintended similarity).
In the preceding example, there is enough information in the structure of the document itself (which is specified by the "root" element) to provide a means of unambiguously resolving element names.
For example, using XPath:
//root/person/title ;; the formal title for a person //root/book/title ;; the title of a bookRead more about this topic: Naming Collision
Famous quotes containing the words element and/or names:
“We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole world or even two; he has grown used to its disappearance and accustomed to the new scenery of another act: but suddenly the names and faces of a time long dead appear more and more often on his way, calling up series of shades and pictures kept somewhere, “just in case” in the endless catacombs of the memory, making him smile or sigh, and sometimes almost weep.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)