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Re: Why isn't the semicolon a reserved character?

• From: "G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>
• To: "xml-dev@lists.xml.org" <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
• Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 19:33:31 -0400

At 2014-03-15 21:41 +0000, Costello, Roger L. wrote:

This XML document is not well-formed:

<Document>
]]>
</Document>

Why? Because the XML parser see that and thinks that the > symbol marks the end of a CDATA section;

the XML parser throws an error since there is no preceding <![[CDATA

The > symbol must be escaped like so:

<Document>
]]&gt;
</Document>

Now consider the ; symbol. It marks the end of an entity reference.

This is a well-formed XML document:

<Document>
A;B
</Document>

Why doesn't the XML parser see that and think that the ; marks the end of an entity reference; why doesn't the XML parser throw an error since there is no preceding & symbol?

Why isn't the ; symbol a reserved symbol?

• References:
  • Why isn't the semicolon a reserved character?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>