xml-dev - RE: On a more pleasant note

[David Megginson <david@megginson.com>]

Barry Paul writes:

 > 1. Use namespaces (seriously!)
 > 2. Encode '<', '>', etc using entities
 > 3. Enclose the HTML CDATA sections

[snip]

 > 1. This is OK if you are sure that the HTML is valid and well formed
 > 2. What else would you have to encode? (HTML entities?)
 > 3. Maybe some whitespace issues
 > 
 > Seems like number 3 would be a good way to go.

Actually, it's by far the worst of the three.  When someone is
actually generating the markup (as Tim is in this case), then there
are immense advantages to being able to process the HTML with the same
software as the rest of the document, so #1 is far and away the
winner.  After all, the human-readable documentation is meant to be
part of the document.

#2 is also pretty awful, but at least it won't blow up if the HTML
happens to contain the "]]>" character sequence (say, as an
emoticon?).


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david@megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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