HTML/XML escaped characters

Randy,

You referred to "character references" in the first message in this thread, but the examples you mention include:

          –

          &

          ߞ

Actually, only the last one is a character reference (the # is important). The first two are entity references. SGML and XML entity references can be used for a variety of purposes including special characters. Five entities for special characters are built into XML. They provide an easy method of entering data characters that would otherwise be interpreted as markup. These pre-defined entities are amp, lt, gt, quot, and apos. References to any other entity can only be used in a document that includes a DTD and then the DTD must declare the entity. The first thing to check when an entity reference such as – fails is that the entity is declared in the DTD. Note that an entity used in a DTD an be declared in an external entity such as a separate file that itself declares other entities.

As far as ߞ, I suspect that the character reference you wanted is –. The number in the first one is the decimal number 2014. The x in the second one indicates a hexadecimal number. And Unicode hex 2014 is the Unicode number for an em dash. Thus, if you had used —, your document would have contained an em dash. You could also have entered the character number in decimal. — would produce the same result. Since you mentioned –, though, you may want an en dash instead of em dash. The Unicode character number for en dash is one less than that for em dash, so it can be entered with 𢀓 or –.

   --Lynne