[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: PCDATA and CDATA

• From: Mike Brown <mike@s...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• 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/

• References:
  • RE: PCDATA and CDATA
    • From: Michael Fitzgerald <mike@w...>

• Prev by Date: Re: Hate crimes against Sikh Community......
• Next by Date: Re: PCDATA and CDATA
• Previous by thread: RE: PCDATA and CDATA
• Next by thread: Re: PCDATA and CDATA
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread