Alaises are stored as a normal item tag:
<item ID="3444054848" Creator="">[current item attribute tags]</item>
The item tag has two attributes:
- ID. The $ID of the object.
- Creator. As $Creator is intrinsic, this is left blank so as not to conflict with the value of the original).
Example:
<item ID="3444054848" Creator="" >...</item>
However, unlike normal item or agent tags, aliases never nest other outline objects within themselves. Aliases use, but don't store, their original's prototype.
Alias status is indicated by the presence of one special (internal, hidden) attribute: Alias. An alias will always include these in its default listing, over and above normal item attributes:
<attribute name="Alias" >3444070141</attribute>
<attribute name="Name" ></attribute>
The 'alias' value is the $ID of the original of the alias. The $Name is left blank as this is intrinsic - instead the alias inherits the original's name.
See the item tag description for the general range of attributes used.
Attributes, other than the defaults listed below are only written to file if they hold locally set values, which in the case of aliases will only ever be intrinsic attributes. For an alias item, the following default (intrinsic) attributes are always stored:
- Alias
- Name (set to [no value])
- Created
- Modified
- Xpos
- Ypos