Special characters within CDATA

[raga]

Hi

Could you please let me know

When i specify an attribute of an XML Tag as CDATA in DTD , can i use
& straight away within the value of that attribute (instead of using
& AMP . If we cant use what is the purpose of specifying an
attribute as CDATA in DTD?

any help is appreciated
Thanks

 

[Bjoern Hoehrmann]

* raga wrote in comp.text.xml:

When i specify an attribute of an XML Tag as CDATA in DTD , can i use
& straight away within the value of that attribute (instead of using
& AMP . If we cant use what is the purpose of specifying an
attribute as CDATA in DTD?

You have to escape them regardless. Its primary use is to specify a type
when none of the other types suits your needs (which is often the case.)

 

[Joseph Kesselman]

There are two different things called CDATA in XML, with different
behavior: the CDATA datatype (character data, used for otherwise-untyped
attribute values) and the CDATA Section (using <[CDATA[]]> as an
alternative to escaping individual characters).

 

[Peter Flynn]

Hi

Could you please let me know

When i specify an attribute of an XML Tag as CDATA in DTD , can i use
& straight away within the value of that attribute (instead of using
& AMP
No.

If we cant use what is the purpose of specifying an
attribute as CDATA in DTD?

It's a historical relic: SGML had many other datatypes, but only some
were retained in XML. In any case, as Joe has explained, CDATA in an
attribute declaration is handled differently from CDATA in a marked
section, for unrelated and irrelevant historical reasons ;-)

///Peter