What's the difference between an element and a node in XML?

Question

I\'m working in Java with XML and I\'m wondering; what\'s the difference between an element and a node?

Answer 1

As described in the various XML specifications, an element is that which consists of a start tag, and end tag, and the content in between, or alternately an empty element tag (which has no content or end tag). In other words, these are all elements:

 stuff 

Though you hear "node" used with roughly the same meaning, it has no precise definition per XML specs. It's usually used to refer to nodes of things like DOMs, which may be closely related to XML or use XML for their representation.