xml-dev - Re: PCDATA

[Chris Maden <crism@oreilly.com>]

[John Martin]
> I have heard three different definitions of PCDATA so far.

Actually, you've heard one through two filters, and a rumor of another.

> 1)  The book called XML: A Primer by Simon St. Laurent defines it as
> follows:
> 
> "parsed character data (#PCDATA)" - Parsed character data is text
> that will be examined by the parser for entities and markup.  Parsed
> character data should not contain any &, <, or > characters; these
> need to be represented by the &amp; &lt; and &gt; entities,
> respectively.
> 
> 2)  Microstar's Near & Far Designer defines it in its help screen as
> follows:
> 
> "Processable Character Data (PCDATA)" - Indicates content that can
> be analyzed and processed.  Mark-up entities will be recognized
> within the text.

These are not incompatible, except for the expansion of the
abbreviation.  On that, Simon is right.  Try:

"parsed character data (#PCDATA)" - Parsed character data is text that
can be analyzed by the parser for entities and markup and processed.
Parsed character data should not contain any &, <, or > characters;
these need to be represented by the &amp; &lt; and &gt; entities,
respectively.  Mark-up entities will be recognized within the text.

> 3)  A colleague of mine swears he saw it defined as "printable
> character data," but can't remember where he saw it.

He may well have seen that, but it was wrong.  There are many weird
interpretations of XML out there, especially from the first crush of
books on the subject.

-Chris
-- 
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