- From: David G. Durand <dgd@cs.bu.edu>
- Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 00:15:37 -0400
- To: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
At 9:44 PM 10/8/96, Charles F. Goldfarb wrote: >Here's how I would tell users to address these requirements using DTD-less XML: > >Chapter 5. The CLEARDATA Tag. > >When you need to put scripts or other data in your document that isn't >SGML, you >mark it with special tags called CLEARDATA tags (CDATA for short). These tags >look different from normal tags because they are warning the browser that the >data is clear -- that is, it doesn't have any SGML markup in it. The browser >needs to be warned because if it sees, within CDATA, something that looks like >markup, it has to know it isn't really markup, it's just data. > >The CLEARDATA start-tag is: <![CDATA[ >The CLEARDATA end-tag is: ]]> This points out the problem with this kind of notation. The syntax is bizarre. And the first question that anyone will ask is "why not have a '<cleardata>' tag, and only </cleardata> will end it". There's no good way to answer that, because it's a workable, simpler syntax. I tend to agree with PaulP that the DTD-free parsing for verbatim elements is too hard (and that's why all whitespace must be significant always, element content or not). The use of entities or backslash-style quotes seem easier to justify on their own merits. I say lose CDATA. -- David RE delenda est. _________________________________________ David Durand dgd@cs.bu.edu \ david@dynamicDiagrams.com Boston University Computer Science \ Sr. Analyst http://www.cs.bu.edu/students/grads/dgd/ \ Dynamic Diagrams --------------------------------------------\ http://dynamicDiagrams.com/ MAPA: mapping for the WWW \__________________________ http://www.dynamicdiagrams.com/services_map_main.html
Received on Wednesday, 9 October 1996 00:11:29 UTC