Re: Named character references (Was: preseving charact

> Scrolling down the Google search result, I notice a remark about SGML named character references 
> being things like &#SPACE;. David, if you just would have said that the term I used was referring to 
> those kind of thing (by example), I wouldn't have been puzzled that much and wouldn't have had to 
> bother you about it.. :P

aha actually I didn't mean them (although as you point out I probably
should have meant them)
I was highlighting the difference between the standard html/iso names in
html and xhtml in html
α is an SDATA entity so doesn't really expand to anything, it's
just a name that the application is supposed to something with, whereas in
XHTML it's a general entity (the only sort XML has) and so expands to a
unicode character and the application probably doesn't even know the
entiuty was used.

> The actual point I tried to make is that people are using the official
> terms not very carefully and 
That's certainly true (myself included:-)

> instead of saying "entity reference", one could say "named character entity" (not "reference" ;) and 
> instead of "character reference", one could say "numeric character reference". It is unlikely that 

I always try to say numeric character reference (except when picking on
you :-)  so I agree with teh second suggestion but not the first. you do
want "reference" in there somewhere. The entity is a thing and it's name
is (say) alpha, and the syntax for referencing the entity is α
so if you are talking about the α notation as opposed to say an
entity declaration then you want to say entity reference. It woul dbe a
clarifuaction to say character entity reference except that brings in
the thorny issue of what's a character, the w3c has just published
another draft on its character model document which goes to some lengths
to define terms in this area (and basically advises avoiding the word
character as its so overloaded with conflicting meanings:-)
in this case when is an entity a "character entity"? answer when it's a
single character, except what's a single character many of the
"characters" are made up of two or three unicode characters  a base with
a combining character, or a variant selector character (in teh case of
mathml entities) or in some cases in the iso entity set just two
non-combing characters next to each other.

> By the way, I don't recall the initial poster 
oh yes, apologies for wandering off thread (and perilously close to
being off topic for the list)

David

________________________________________________________________________
This e-mail has been scanned for all viruses by Star. The
service is powered by MessageLabs. For more information on a proactive
anti-virus service working around the clock, around the globe, visit:
http://www.star.net.uk
________________________________________________________________________