A sample XML document

The sample Order document is designed for a purchase order application. Customers submit orders, which are identified by a date and a customer ID. Each order item has an item ID, an item name, a quantity, and a unit designation.

An order document might display on screen like this:

ORDER

Date: July 4, 1999

Customer ID: 123

Customer Name: Acme Alpha

Items:

Item ID	Item Name	Quantity
987	Coupler	5
654	Connector	3 dozen
579	Clasp	1

A possible XML representation of the data for the order is:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Order>
	<Date>1999/07/04</Date>
	<CustomerId>123</CustomerId>
	<CustomerName>Acme Alpha</CustomerName>

	<Item>
 		<ItemId> 987</ItemId>
 		<ItemName>Coupler</ItemName>
 		<Quantity>5</Quantity>
	</Item>

	<Item>
		<ItemId>654</ItemId>
		<ItemName>Connector</ItemName>
		<Quantity unit="12">3</Quantity>
	</Item>

	<Item>  
		<ItemId>579</ItemId>
		<ItemName>Clasp</ItemName>
		<Quantity>1</Quantity>
	</Item>

</Order>

The XML document for the order data consists of these parts:

The XML declaration, <?xml version=“1.0”?>, which identifies Order as an XML document.

XML documents are represented as character data. In each document, the character encoding (character set) is specified, either explicitly or implicitly. To explicitly specify the character set, include the character set in the XML declaration. For example:
```
<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”ISO-8859-1”>
```
If you do not include the character set in the XML declaration, the default, which is UTF8, is used. For example:
```
<?xml version=”1.0”?>
```
When the default character sets of the client and server differ, Sybase IQ bypasses normal character set translations so that the declared character set continues to match the actual character set. See “Character sets and XML data”.
User-created element tags such as <Order>…</Order>, <CustomerId>…</CustomerId>, <Item>….</Item>. In XML documents, all opening tags must have a corresponding closing tag.
Text data such as “Acme Alpha,” “Coupler,” and “579.”
Attributes embedded in element tags such as <Quantity unit = “12”>. This kind of coding allows you the flexibility to customize elements.

A document with these parts, and with the element tags strictly nested, is called a well-formed XML document. Note that in the example above element tags describe the data they contain, and the document contains no formatting instructions.