# Entering XML tags

An XML tag is used in the fpXmap wizard to identify an XML element or attribute. In order to uniquely identify an element two parts of the tag must be present - the tag and the path to the tag. When XML elements from multiple sources are combined in a single document namespaces are used to uniquely identify tags which have the same name but are defined differently in each of the two XSD files.

The tag name must follow certain naming rules:

- Names can consist of letters, number, and other characters
- Names cannot start with a number or punctuation character
- Names cannot start with the letters XML in any upper/lower case combination
- Names cannot contain spaces

Names are best kept short, simple, and descriptive. Underscore characters ('_') are almost always the best choice to separate words.

Colons are used to separate the namespace from the name. Although it is not mandated it is customary to use XS or XSD as the namespace identifier for the XML Schema namespace.

See also:

- Tag Path