Special characters within CDATA

[raga]

Hi

Could you please let me know

When i specify an attribute of an XML Tag as CDATA in DTD , can i use
& straight away within the value of that attribute (instead of using
& AMP ;) . If we cant use what is the purpose of specifying an
attribute as CDATA in DTD?

any help is appreciated
Thanks

[Bjoern Hoehrmann]

* raga wrote in comp.text.xml:

When i specify an attribute of an XML Tag as CDATA in DTD , can i use
& straight away within the value of that attribute (instead of using
& AMP ;) . If we cant use what is the purpose of specifying an
attribute as CDATA in DTD?

You have to escape them regardless. Its primary use is to specify a type
when none of the other types suits your needs (which is often the case.)
--
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bj****@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Weinh. Str. 22 · Telefon: [phone] · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
68309 Mannheim · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

[Joseph Kesselman]

There are two different things called CDATA in XML, with different
behavior: the CDATA datatype (character data, used for otherwise-untyped
attribute values) and the CDATA Section (using <[CDATA[]]as an
alternative to escaping individual characters).
--
Joe Kesselman / Beware the fury of a patient man. -- John Dryden

[Peter Flynn]

raga wrote:

Hi

Could you please let me know

When i specify an attribute of an XML Tag as CDATA in DTD , can i use
& straight away within the value of that attribute (instead of using
& AMP ;)

No.

If we cant use what is the purpose of specifying an
attribute as CDATA in DTD?

It's a historical relic: SGML had many other datatypes, but only some
were retained in XML. In any case, as Joe has explained, CDATA in an
attribute declaration is handled differently from CDATA in a marked
section, for unrelated and irrelevant historical reasons ;-)

///Peter
--
XML FAQ: http://xml.silmaril.ie/