Decision: C.4 (Predefined entities)

This is one of a series of reports on recent decisions of the SGML ERB.

Due to some confusion on the part of the Chair, this question got
resolved in several pieces, which for purposes of simplicity are
somewhat condensed in the following report.

(a) XML will declare a number of entities automatically.

Decision: Yes.  Dissenting: Bray.

(b) Users will be able to override the predefined entities.

Decision: No.  Dissenting: Sperberg-McQueen.

(Thus, processors shall behave as though declarations for the
predefined entities are encountered at the end of the external DTD
subset.)

(c) In addition to "lt", "amp", and "gt" (decided in a previous vote),
the predefined entities shall include "quot" (for hex 22 -- same as in
HTML) and "squot" (for hex 27 -- undefined in HTML).

Decision: Yes.

(d) The predefined entities shall include all those entities specified
in the HTML 3.2 specification (the Latin 1 entities plus "copy",
"reg", and "nbsp").

Decision: Yes.  Dissenting: Bray, Clark.

(e) The predefined entities shall include all the entities recently
approved by the HTML ERB for inclusion in the "Cougar" DTD.  This
means, basically, all of the HTML 3.2 entities plus all of the ISO
entities for which characters exist in the Adobe Symbol font set,
which is supported across Windows, X11, and Macintosh platforms.

Decision: Yes.  Dissenting: Bray, Clark.  Abstaining: Maler.

Thus, the list of ISO entities predefined in XML is as follows (list
courtesy of Bob Stayton, SCO):

******list******

Received on Saturday, 9 November 1996 17:59:47 UTC