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strange definition of & and < in iso-num.ent
- From: Alexander Dupuy <dupuy at sysd dot com>
- To: docbook at lists dot oasis-open dot org
- Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 20:41:13 -0500
- Subject: DOCBOOK: strange definition of & and < in iso-num.ent
- Organization: System Detection, Inc.
In the XML entities file iso-num.ent (ISO Numeric and Special Graphic
Entities V0.3 $Id: iso-num.ent,v 1.3 2002/06/13 17:39:20 nwalsh Exp $)
there are the following two rather odd definitions of & and <:
<!ENTITY lt "&#60;"> <!-- LESS-THAN SIGN -->
<!ENTITY amp "&#38;"> <!-- AMPERSAND -->
which effectively define the < entity as "<" and & as "&".
In practice, this has little effect, since the XML spec predefines &
and < as "&" and "<", and most tools won't modify those definitions,
but it can cause some confusion. You can see somebody relying on these
definitions in http://www.mulberrytech.com/quickref/XMLquickref.pdf
(where, on the second page, the list of Predefined General Entities
gives these strange definitions of & and <).
Unless there is some subtle reason beyond my understanding why these
definitions should be given as such, they should probably be corrected
in the next release.
@alex
--
mailto:dupuy at sysd dot com