One of the main reasons to use XML is to insure that anyone can read your data. To insure that anyone can, your XML must be presented in a well formed document. Well formed means that your document follows rules which allow the data to be read by any commerial parser. Using this checklist will insure that your document follows the well formed guidelines. Insure that your document:
- Contains a root element
- Elements are properly nested
- All tags are closed
- Tags do not overlap
- Case sensitity checked
- Tag attribute values are in quotes
- Tag do not repeat an attribute within a tag
- Tags use proper delimiters
- Elements do not overlap
- Empty element tags end properly – include a slash before the end bracket
- Entity references are declared
- No illegal characters
