Re: [xml-dev] Why doesn't the XML specification use the word"metacharact

[Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>]

Metacharacter in my understanding of ‘meta’ would mean a character used to represent a character.

That meaning seems to fit with its use in regex.

It does not fit with XML.

On Tue, 9 Aug 2022 at 12:08, Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

Hi Folks,

The regular expression metacharacters are:

\  ^  $  .  [  ]  |  (  )  *  +  ?  {  }

They are called metacharacters because they have special meanings.

XML has five characters with special meanings:

<  >  &  "  '

I searched the XML specification for the word "metacharacter". There are zero occurrences.

Why doesn't the XML specification use the word "metacharacter"?

/Roger

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Stephen D Green