Re: [xml-dev] XML Quiz

[David Carlisle <d.p.carlisle@gmail.com>]

On Tue, 3 May 2022 at 13:28, Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

After XML parsing is complete, every occurrence of &amp; will have been replaced by &

 

1. True
2. False

 

Scroll down to see the answer ……………

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

False! If the &amp; is within a CDATA section or within a comment, then it will be unchanged. Otherwise, it will be changed.

 

Lesson Learned: An XML lexer/parser must perform conditional processing:

 

IF (&amp; is within a CDATA section or comment) THEN

    OUTPUT(“&amp;”)

ELSE

    OUTPUT(“&”)

That's a strange way to describe the condition (and I doubt it corresponds to real code)

It's not that you scoop up `&amp;` then decide what to do with it, rather it is

if & is within a CDATA section or comment or PI ....

   &

else

 start scanning for an entity or character reference

Your description would need separate tests for &amp;  and &rightarrow; and &eacute; ....

David