Example XML using element nodes:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<users>
  <user>
    <name>David Smith</name>
    <phone>0441 234443</phone>
    <email>[email protected]</email>
    <addresses>
      <address>
        <street>1 Some Street</street>
        <town>Toy Town</town>
        <country>UK</country>
      </address>
      <address>
        <street>5 New Street</street>
        <town>Lego City</town>
        <country>US</country>
      </address>
    </addresses>
  </user>
</users>

Example XML using attributes:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<users>
  <user name="David Smith" phone="0441 234443" email="[email protected]">
    <addresses>
      <address street="1 Some Street" town="Toy Town" country="UK" />
      <address street="5 New Street" town="Lego City" country="US" />
    </addresses>
  </user>
</users>

I'm needing to build an XML file based on data from a relation database and can't work out whether I should use attributes or elements.

What is best practice when building XML files?