[fpc-devel] MakeSkel problem with operators?

[Hans-Peter Diettrich]

michael.vancanneyt at wisa.be schrieb:

>> In an attempt to check the yet undocumented FCL units for use with 
>> FPDoc and MakeSkel, I got an error in the created skeleton for gmp:
>>  <element name="operator <(MPFloat, MPFloat): Boolean">
>>
>> The "<" and ">" chars in operator names should be escaped in the XML 
>> files.
> 
> Last time this was remarked on, there was discussion whether < and > 
> need to
> be escaped inside attribute values. I never got around to checking the XML
> specs.

The specs really are a bit weird:
[10] 	AttValue 	::= 	'"' ([^<&"] | Reference)* '"'
			|? "'" ([^<&'] | Reference)* "'"

This means that "<" is not allowed inside an attribute value, while ">" 
seems to be allowed. An "&" has to be escaped because it is used as the 
escape character in a CharRef ("&#nn;") or EntityRef (e.g. "<").

> In each case it's easily fixable.

At least a writer has to escape "<", this should be fixed ASAP.

I'd escape both "<" and ">" in writing XML attributes, to prevent any 
possible problems. A reader instead should allow for ">" there, 
conforming to the specs.

DoDi