Re: [xml-dev] Tradeoffs of XML encoding by enclosing all content in CDAT

["Fraser Goffin" <goffinf@googlemail.com>]

Whilst I am pretty much in agreement with all of the sentiments
expressed here, its interesting that no one has really come up with a
compelling argument for not using CDATA to resolve this encoding
issue. This makes it quite difficult for designers to argue against
this approach as the OP suggests when faced with that challenge.

So as a provocation, I integrate with many back office applications a
number of which were written before I was born and they are still
going strong and supporting core business capabilities. Many are
written in languages that don't natively support XML, run on all
manner of platforms, and are maintained by programmers who have no
skill in XML at its relations or (as they might perceive it) need to
acquire it. Such applications typically *do* just output XML as a
string.

Before we dismiss these applications as useless because they don't
natively support XML and suggest that there keepers are 'lazy', what
does the group suggest is the best approach to maintaining the correct
encoding. Consider also that some of these may be packaged
applications where the organisation may not have access to the source
code and/or may not want to commit to enhancing it. Perhaps this is a
case for a mediation layer ?

Fraser.

2008/9/30 Felix Sasaki <fsasaki@w3.org>:
> Not main arguments, but maybe still of interest:
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-i18n-bp/#AuthCDATA
>
> Felix
>
> Karr, David さんは書きました:
>>
>> I pointed out to a client that they're seeing failures parsing XML because
>> some of the element content that they're producing contains characters
>> illegal in XML content, like "&" (unencoded). They acknowledged that should
>> be fixed, but they also said they could instead enclose all content with
>> CDATA blocks. That seems bizarre to me, but I'm not sure I can immediately
>> come up with all the cogent arguments against that. Can someone summarize
>> specifically why you should NOT do that?
>>
>
>
>
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