RE: Maintaining character entities

>If the entity is not defined by the DTD used on input, teh input is not
>well formed and you will get no output at all.

not according to the XML specification
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#wf-entdeclared
Note that if entities are declared in the external subset or in external parameter entities, a non-validating processor is not obligated to read and process their declarations; for such documents, the rule that an entity must be declared is a well-formedness constraint only if standalone='yes'.

Edward Middleton

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