An XML document that adheres to the following XML syntax rules: Uses a DTD file or contains an XML declaration with the "standalone" attribute set to "no" Element attributes are in quotes Elements have an opening and closing tag unless it is an empty tag set Tag sets nest correctly
From Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.1 ( 2004-02-04) A textual object is a well-formed XML document if
From Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 ( 2000-10-06) A textual object is a well-formed XML document if
From RDF Semantics ( 2004-02-10) (adj., of an expression). Syntactically legal.
An XML document that meets the conditions defined in the XML 1.0 Recommendation: it must be readable without ambiguity. Syntax errors are detected by an XML parser even without schema of any type.
conforming to the rules of grammar or usage accepted by native speakers; "spoke in grammatical sentences"
A document is "well-formed" if all of its start tags have end tags and are nested properly, with any empty tags properly terminated, and any attribute values properly quoted. An XML document must be well-formed by definition.
The term used to refer to an XML document that conforms to the syntax of the XML version declared in its XML declaration. This includes having a single root element, properly nested tags, and so forth.
b . A term used to describe an XML document that meets the basic syntax requirements of XML. Note that a well-formed document may not be a valid document according to its schema or DTD. See: Schema, Document Type Definition (DTD)
A well-formed XML document is syntactically correct. It does not have any angle brackets that are not part of tags. (The entity reference< and > are used to embed angle brackets in an XML document.) In addition, all tags have an ending tag or are themselves self-ending (slide../slide or slide/). In addition, in a well-formed document, all tags are fully nested. They never overlap, so this arrangement would produce an error: slideimage../slide/image. Knowing that a document is well formed makes it possible to process it. A well-formed document may not be valid however. To determine that, you need a validating parser and a DTD.
An XML document is declared "well-formed" by the parser when it complies with the generic XML specifications. See also Validation.
A node is a well-formed XML node if its serialized form, without doing any transformation during its serialization, matches its respective production in [ XML 1.0] or [ XML 1.1] (depending on the XML version in use) with all well-formedness constraints related to that production, and if the entities which are referenced within the node are also well-formed. If namespaces for XML are in use, the node must also be namespace well-formed.
An XML document that follows all the rules of XML, but has not necessarily been validated against a DTD.
Conforming to the fundamental syntactic rules of XML, but not necessarily conforming to any particular DTD or XML schema.
(Application Developer's Guide - XML; search in this book)
Refers to an XML document that obeys the syntax of XML. A parser cannot parse a document if its XML is not well-formed. Some of the checks for well-formedness are: Element start tags must have end tags (except for empty elements). Attribute values must be quoted. Parameter entities must be declared before they are used. Markup constructs appear only where permitted.
A well-formed document may or may not have a DTD. Well-formed document must have with an XML declaration and contain properly nested and marked-up elements.
Conforming to XML rules, e.g. matching start & end tags for all elements, a single root elemenet, correctly-formatted empty elements, correct nesting, attribute variables in quotes.
In the context of XML a document that defines the XML construction rules.
A node is a well-formed XML node if it matches its respective production in [ XML 1.0], meets all well-formedness constraints related to the production, if the entities which are referenced within the node are also well-formed. See also the definition for well-formed XML documents in [ XML 1.0].