Just gonna kind of dip my toes in the water here on this board with a simple one I've wondered ever since I started getting into modding for TS4 about a year or two ago; don't want to commit too much to a board that seems a tad slow and I also don't want to break any rules asking irrelevant stuff or things that have been answered already. I figured this might be a good first topic/question to try out.

So, basically, when using s4pe (sims 4 package editor), I can extract xml files and play around with them using notepad++, and after countless hours doing so I've accrued many notes on a .txt file and a self-proclaimed intermediate's amount of knowledge on the subject, though I am still lacking greatly, because one thing I've always wondered is uh, well, what exactly do the individual letters in things like:

<V>; <U>; <L>; <E>; <T>; etc.

...actually "mean" and refer to? Now, I know U is often preceded by V tags and operates inside of them, typically (it may also be followed by another <V> tag, as well, IIRC); I also know that <T> is almost always a bit of a "standalone" thing, usually inside an <L> tag and denotes things like traits or animations or stuff and <E> seems to handle things like target Sim or Sim info/species/gender tagging. And I know they're all concluded with an appropriate end tag </>, er, well, I assume they all are, at least.

I guess my MAIN question is...do the letters stand for anything? Were they chosen arbitrarily or does it have some kind of basis in python/HTML coding or something? I'm still very much an amateur at this stuff and despite attempts to learn coding like C++ and what not, I've never made it too far. So yeah, this question is probably pretty stupid but I would really like to know why the letters are used like they are and why, sometimes, the trends seem to be bucked and go in different directions—like when testing for autonomous in a social interaction, near the end of the xml, I've noticed whitelist/blacklist trait checks are enclosed in an <L> / </L> tag, whereas global test does not need such a thing, apparently.

I've been a bit wordy so I'll wrap it up with an apology for how unorthodox this probably is and if I've broken any rules or customs here. I have used Google for questions like this in the past but never seemed to find anything, and I had a burst of motivation right now and wanted to see if this board could become a useful tool for my modding endeavors, so I went for it. I don't expect a hasty response and I won't feel slighted if the topic receives no responses or is locked/deleted, but any input offered would be greatly appreciated!

Thank ye