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Re: Why embed a fake comment inside an element?

• From: "G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>
• To: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>,"xml-dev@l..." <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2021 15:18:50 -0500

An XML processor is allowed to ignore incoming comments in its processing.

https://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#dt-comment

an XML processor may, but need not, make it possible for an application to retrieve the text of comments.

Hi Folks,

I am processing a bunch of XHTML documents. Some XHTML documents contain things like this:

<style>
<![CDATA[
<!--
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
-->
]]>
</style>

So, the content of the <style> element is this:
<!--
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
-->

That looks like a comment, but it's not a comment, it's just a string. Right?

Question: Why would someone would do this? Is there a benefit to embedding a fake comment inside an element?

/Roger

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• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Why embed a fake comment inside an element?
    • From: Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie>