> I don't understand. Why are you using a program (xmllint) that adds
> whitespace to your XML if you don't want whitespace added to your XML?
> 
> Michael Kay

My example did not clearly illustrate my need to use CDATA sections.
I am treating all instances of <programlisting> uniformly with:

  <xsl:output cdata-section-elements="programlisting"/>

so that I can delay the resolution of my CDATA sections until later.
Whether the particular instance contains escapable characters or not,
I need to maintain all <programlistings> content as CDATA sections.

Perhaps, I'm expecting the wrong things from xmllint.

Your book talks about canonical documents, and what I want is 
a tool that indents a document without changing its semantics.
Is there no such tool by definition?

For everything other than this treatment of CDATA sections, I am 
happy with xmllint -format. 

Taro

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