xmlName

xmlname is a term encountered in XML processing to denote the qualified name of an XML element or attribute. It combines the local part of the name with its namespace information to uniquely identify a node within an XML document that uses namespaces. In practice, xmlname is often represented as a QName (qualified name) or as a set of namespaceURI, localName, and optional prefix components.

A typical xmlname consists of three parts: the namespace URI that identifies the namespace, the local name that identifies the element or attribute within that namespace, and an optional namespace prefix used in the source document. In many APIs, the emphasis is on the namespace URI and local name rather than the textual prefix, since prefixes are not globally meaningful beyond their scope in a document.

Usage and representation vary by API. In the Document Object Model (DOM), elements have properties such as namespaceURI, localName, and prefix, from which the xmlname can be derived. In code, a QName object is commonly used to store and compare qualified names; language libraries often provide constructors or helpers to create a QName given a namespace URI and a local name, with an optional prefix.

Examples help illustrate the concept. An element declared as <x:book xmlns:x="http://example.org/ns"> has a textual xmlname of x:book, while its canonical expanded name can be represented as {http://example.org/ns}book. Different libraries may expose this information as strings like "prefix:localName" or as structured objects containing namespaceURI and localName.

See also QName, XML Namespaces, XML Namespace handling, and XPath expanded-name.

Etymology: xmlname is a practical rendering of “XML qualified name,” commonly used in documentation and code to refer to a namespaced element or attribute.