weird nesting in xml

Question

this seems to be a valid xml file and i was able to import it into dropdownlist, but i don't understand the funny nesting. :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Countries>
  <Country>
    <ID>1</ID>
    <Name>Nepal</Name>
  </Country>
  <Country>
    <ID>2</ID>
    <Name>India</Name>
    <Country>
      <ID>3</ID>
      <Name>China</Name>
    </Country>
    <Country>
      <ID>4</ID>
      <Name>Bhutan</Name>
    </Country>
    <Country>
      <ID>5</ID>
      <Name>USA</Name>
    </Country>
  </Country>
</Countries>

why is there a closing second to last line? what is it closing? and why is india not closed?

Answer 1

Your file thinks China, Bhutan, and USA are children of India. India is, in fact, closed by the last country end tag. It is technically an "acceptable" (actual term for this is well-formed) XML file, but sanity checks say it makes no sense. File probably should look like this:

<Countries>
<Country>
  <ID>1</ID>
  <Name>Nepal</Name>
</Country>
<Country>
  <ID>2</ID>
  <Name>India</Name>
</Country>
<Country>
  <ID>3</ID>
  <Name>China</Name>
</Country>
<Country>
  <ID>4</ID>
  <Name>Bhutan</Name>
</Country>
<Country>
  <ID>5</ID>
  <Name>USA</Name>
</Country>
</Countries>

Answer 2

Huh, India is closed with the last /country?

Answer 3

Its well formed in theory, but doesnt look well formed to me, by the pattern i see. Most likely just a typo. Or it was generated there is a bug in the code that does the generation.

Answer 4

either validation is turned off or the ELEMENT Country can contain other Country elements. Can you check the DTD for the Country ELEMENT definition?