Enclosing the attribute within double quotes isn't pre-disposing the value to be of a particular type. It's part of the XML spec that attribute values are conta

Enclosing the attribute within double quotes isn't pre-disposing the value to be of a particular type. It's part of the XML spec that attribute values are contained within double quotes, and must be to be valid. The type isn't implied in the file. An xml schema such as <xs:element name="Task"> <xs:complexType> <xs:attribute name="ID" type="xs:int" use="required" /> </xs:complexType> </xs:element> could more explicitly declare the type of the value.