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> "Elliotte Rusty Harold" wrote > > Section 4-1 of the XML 1.0 second edition spec states: > > > Well-Formedness Constraint: In DTD > Parameter-entity references may only appear in the DTD. > > > The Annotated XML spec notes that: > > This constraint is not actually wrong, but it is rather misleading. > Suppose I have a parameter entity named Fred, then if the string %Fred; > appears somewhere in the document, outside of the DTD, that's not an > error as this suggests; it's just the string %Fred;. > > So my question is why is this constraint here at all? What is its > effect? If we removed it form the spec (say in the third edition) would > this in any way change which document are considered to be well-formed > or valid? Would removing it give parsers any leeway they don't have now? > Right now this seems like an unnecessary statement to me. > My understanding is that the spec is correct; parameter entity references cannot appear outside of a DTD, the reason being that outside of a DTD %Fred; is *not* a reference to a parameter entity, it's just the string %Fred;. Put another way the % character is only treated specially in the DTD, it is treated just like any other character when encountered in the XML part of the document. Martin Gudgin DevelopMentor
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