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Why doesn't the XML specification use the word "metacharacters" forless-

• From: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>
• To: "xml-dev@lists.xml.org" <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
• Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2022 11:08:03 +0000

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

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Why doesn't the XML specification use the word"metacharacters" for less-than, ampersand, greater-than, quote, apostrophe symbols?
    • From: Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>