xml-dev - newbie question: using < in entity declaration

["Sarveshwar Rao Duddu" <duddu@vsnl.com>]

Hi,

I have a doubt in whether or not it is legal to declare something like:

<!ENTITY lt "<">

or should we double escape it...

The spec (in section 4.6) double escapes it. The XML spec in XML in its
internal subset does not escape it, and that also
Works with IBMs xml parser.
Can somebody throw some light on it?

Regards,
Sarvesh
_________________________________________
The spec says (section 2.4)

"The ampersand character (&) and the left angle bracket (<) may appear in
their literal form only when used as markup delimiters, or within a comment,
a processing instruction, or a CDATA section. They are also legal within the
literal entity value of an internal entity declaration;"

and the errata asks us to delete the last sentence in the above:

"E18 Clarification Source: minutes XML-Syntax 1999-02-17 E18
Section 2.4
Delete the second sentence of the third paragraph, which reads: "They are
also legal within the literal entity value of an internal entity
declaration; see "4.3.2 Well-Formed Parsed Entities". "
Rationale:
This sentence is bogus. When & or < are in a literal entity value they are
being used as a markup delimiter, thus the whole second sentence is just
confusing static. "







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