element 1. (data, programming) One of the items of data in an array.
2. (language, text) One kind of node in an SGML, HTML, or XML document tree. An SGML element is typically represented by a start tag ("<p>") and an end tag ("</p>"). In some SGML implementations, some tags are omissible, as with "</p>" in HTML. The start tag can contain attributes ("<p lang="en-UK" class='stuff'>"), which are an unordered set of key-value bindings for that element. Both the start tag and end tag for an element typically contain the "tag name" (also called the "GI" or generic identifier) for that element. In XML, an element is always represented either by an explicit start tag and end tag, or by an empty element tag ("<img src='img/dict/thing.png' alt='a dodad' />"). Other kinds of SGML node are: a section of character data ("foo"), a comment ("<!-- bar -->"), a markup declaration ("<!ENTITY reg CDATA '®'>"), or a processing instruction ("<?xml-stylesheet href="shop-english.xsl" type="text/xsl" ?>"). Last updated: 2001-01-30
