State of named character reference apos in XHTML

Hi,

   XML 1.0 introduces a new named character reference ''' to refer
to U+0027 APOSTROPHE. This entity wasn't included in any HTML version,
but it is not listed as compatibility issue in appendix C of XHTML 1.0.
When delivering XHTML documents as text/html current browsers don't
recognize this entity. There is trouble ticket #107 in the Voyager Issue
Tracking System with a note, that the HTML WG decided to add this entity
to HTML 4.01; HTML 4.01 however doesn't include this entity and it
appears to me that this decision was made after HTML 4.01 was published.
The current errata for HTML 4 doesn't list the omission of '
either.

I suggest to discard the idea of adding ' to HTML 4.01 since it
would require to change the relevant DTDs and this is not possible in a
usable fashion through an errata; I suggest further adding another item
in appendix C of XHTML 1.0 that read e.g.

  C.xx Named Character Reference '

  The named character reference ' (the apostrophe, U+0027) was
  introduced in XML 1.0 but didn't appear in former HTML versions.
  Authors should therefore use ' instead of ' to work as
  expected in HTML 4 user agents.

regards,
-- 
Björn Höhrmann { mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de } http://www.bjoernsworld.de
am Badedeich 7 } Telefon: +49(0)4667/981028 { http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
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Received on Wednesday, 15 August 2001 17:46:26 UTC