• From: Tim Bray <Tim.Bray@S...>
• To: "Rudick, Tom" <tmrudick@m...>
• Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 00:25:00 -0700

On Sep 20, 2007, at 10:05 AM, Rudick, Tom wrote:

> So we know that the first character in an xml document must be <.
> Which has the ASCII value of 60.

No, that's not true.  The smart thing to do would to point at http:// 
www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-guessing-no-ext-info, which has a very  
complete explanation of how this is done.

> So a parser will keep reading in bytes until it gets up to 60.

No!  Good heavens.  Go read the specification.  -Tim

• References:
  • Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8) put Inside the XML Document?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>
  • RE: Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8) put Inside the XML Document?
    • From: "Michael Kay" <mike@s...>
  • Re: Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8) putInside the XML Document?
    • From: Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@r...>
  • Re: Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8) putInside the XML Document?
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <rjelliffe@a...>
  • [Summary] Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8") put Inside the XML Document?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>
  • Re: [Summary] Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8") put Inside the XML Document?
    • From: David Carlisle <davidc@n...>
  • RE: [Summary] Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8") put Inside the XML Document?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>
  • Re: [Summary] Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8") put Inside the XML Document?
    • From: David Carlisle <davidc@n...>
  • RE: [Summary] Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8") put Inside the XML Document?
    • From: "Rudick, Tom" <tmrudick@m...>
  • Re: [Summary] Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8")put Inside the XML Document?
    • From: Philippe Poulard <philippe.poulard@s...>
  • RE: [Summary] Why is Encoding Metadata (e.g. encoding="UTF-8") put Inside the XML Document?
    • From: "Rudick, Tom" <tmrudick@m...>