xml-dev - Re: parsing entity values

[Richard Goerwitz <richard@goon.stg.brown.edu>]

> > Actually, it's already a syntax error - S. 4.3.2 says that "An internal
> > parsed general entity is well-formed if its replacement text matches
> > <i>content</i>."
> 
> Actually that's not quite right.  The parsed entity is not
> well-formed, but that doesn't affect the well-formedness of the
> document unless the entity is referenced (section 2.1).
> 
> >  Do any of the available parsers indicate an error if &elt;
> > is not used in the document?
> 
> Yes - the STG validator at http://www.stg.brown.edu/service/xmlvalid/

Here was our rationale:

If an entity is defined in such a way that, if used, it will always
generate an error, then it makes sense to let the user know about it.

Generally this situation reflects a problem with the DTD - in fact,
the worst kind of problem in the sense that it results in a DTD that
seems to work perfectly fine with some documents, but then suddenly
produces errors when somebody writes a document that actually uses
the entity in question.

It makes the DTD writer think that the error is in the document
(which, according to the standard, it is).

-- 

Richard Goerwitz
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