Transaction History XML question...

Just to be clear, the xml file I'm talking about is the one I get to via SL Homepage->My Account->Transactions->Set Date Range->xml)

The xml format looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<transactions>
	<transaction_58887076>
		<id>58887076</id>
		<type>Give Inventory</type>
		<description></description>
		<payment>0</payment>
		<time>2006-07-26 22:33:49</time>
		<resident>xxx xxxx</resident>
		<end_balance>-</end_balance>
	</transaction_58887076>
	<transaction_58876388>
		<id>58876388</id>
		<type>Upload Charge</type>
		<description></description>
		<payment>10</payment>
		<time>2006-07-26 21:55:26</time>
		<resident>SYSTEM</resident>
		<end_balance>xxx</end_balance>
	</transaction_58876388>
	<transaction_58812627>
		<id>58812627</id>
		<type>Object Sale</type>
		<description>Product X</description>
		<deposit>xxx</deposit>
		<time>2006-07-26 18:26:18</time>
		<resident>xxxx</resident>
		<end_balance>xxx</end_balance>
	</transaction_58812627>
</transactions>

My question is this. Is there a specific reason that the elements contained within the transactions element are "transaction_{some ID number}" instead of just "transaction"?

The reason I ask is that XML-wise, each transaction_{blah} element is an utterly different thing, not the same type of thing with different data. The ID is already an element of the transaction_{blah} element, and it could be easily added as an attribute:

<transaction id="123456">...</transaction>

Now, it's no problem to build an xml parser that understands to drop the _{blah} from the tag to determine how to handle things, but before I do, I was just curious as to the rationale for the way the xml is structured.

Asking about this...

Yeah, I wasn't very happy about it when I created it that way, but it was basically a matter of expediency and assuming that anyone parsing this data would be smart enough to to strip apart the piece... It's why I put the underscore in -- to give you somthing to split the sting on .

To generate this data, we first put the data into a php array, and use a php library to generate the xml from that array. As you may know, all PHP arrays are hashes with either implicit keys (0,1,2...) or explicit ones ($key->$value). Assigning a new transaction to the arrayname['transaction'] would overwrite the existing transaction, and you'd end up with only one transaction. Assigning it to just arrayname[] would force the implicit keys so you'd get

<transactions>
  <0>
      ...transaction details
  </0>
  <1>
     ...etc...
</transactions>

So, I compromised as described above.