Re: No < in Attribute Values

/ Richard Tobin <richard@inf.ed.ac.uk> was heard to say:
|> 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 "<".

Yes, I understand that. I'm just noting that when I looked at the WFC from
the perspective of someone less familiar with the details, I could see how
they'd come to the erroneous conclusion that "<foo attr='&lt;'/>" should
be an error.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh
XML Standards Architect
Sun Microsystems, Inc.