Re: [xml-dev] PCDATA and CDATA

[Michael Fitzgerald <mike@wyeast.net>]

Okay, Mike has given a better explanation. I defer and demur. -Mike F.

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Mike Brown <mike@skew.org>
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 18:31:26 -0600 (MDT)

>Michael Fitzgerald wrote:
>> #PCDATA [...] specifies that an element will contain parsed
>> character data. Parsing tests whether the characters conform to the
>> lexical constraints imposed by XML 1.0. 
>> 
>> CDATA appears in attribute declarations and specifies that an
>> attribute will contain character data that is not parsed.
>
>That's not accurate. All characters in an XML document are "parsed" in
>the sense that you describe.
>
>"CDATA" is a token used in an attribute declaration to declare the
>attribute as having a string type. '&', and '<' and the quote character
>used for delimiting the attribute value have special meaning in
>attributes of this type.
>
>"#PCDATA" is a token used in an element declaration to declare the
>element as having mixed content (character data, or character data mixed
>with other elements). The content of the element is parsed; '&' and '<'
>have special meaning and must be escaped if they aren't the start of
>markup.
>
>A "CDATA section", bounded in markup by "<![CDATA[" and "]]>" is, by
>comparison, "unparsed" character data (though even it is subject to at
>least one restriction -- it can't contain "]]>"). A CDATA section can
>only appear in element content, and it has nothing to do with the
>"CDATA" token used in attribute decls.
>
>   - Mike
>____________________________________________________________________________
>  mike j. brown, fourthought.com  |  xml/xslt: http://skew.org/xml/
>  denver/boulder, colorado, usa   |  personal: http://hyperreal.org/~mike/
>
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