Re: No < in Attribute Values

• From: Richard Tobin <richard@inf.ed.ac.uk>
• Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 15:32:14 +0100 (BST)
• To: Norman Walsh <Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM>, public-xml-core-wg@w3.org
• Message-Id: <20070411143214.CF5541D71AB@macpro.inf.ed.ac.uk>

> In reviewing a test case, I discovered there was some confusion about
> this WFC:
> 
>   Well-formedness constraint: No < in Attribute Values
> 
>   The replacement text of any entity referred to directly or
>   indirectly in an attribute value MUST NOT contain a <.
> 
> The person who wrote the test case concluded that this WFC made the
> following document not well-formed:
> 
> <!DOCTYPE foo [
> <!ENTITY x "&lt;">
> <foo attr="&x;"/>
> 
> I wonder if there's somewhere else in the spec that makes this clear,
> or if we want to consider an editorial clarification.

The replacement text of x is the four characters "&lt;".  The replacement
text of lt is the five characters "&#60;" or something similar.  Neither
of these contains a less-than character.

If the definition of x had been

  <!ENTITY x "&#60;">

then the document would not have been well-formed, because the replacement
text of x would be the single character "<".

-- Richard

Received on Wednesday, 11 April 2007 14:32:23 UTC