Re: [xsl] creating links to resource files listed in XML file

[David Carlisle <davidc at nag dot co dot uk>]

> also can I ask why < and > aren't allowed in attributes in XML/XSL. I

well they're not allowed in XSL as they are not in XML, and XSL
stylesheets have to be well formed XML.

In XML I suppose the answer is yes it's a parsing issue.

But if they were allowed (as they are in SGML) it wouldn't have the
effect people seem to want.

<a href='&lt;xsl:value-of select="$myVar"/&gt;'>

here the user is  trying to get <xsl:value-of/> inside an attribute.
This isn't a syntax issue about quoting < it's a semantic issue: XML
attributes are not structured.

In SGML, CDATA attributes (note attibutes are never PCDATA)
you'd have been able to go

<a href='<xsl:value-of select="$myVar"/>'>
but it would _mean_ the same as above ie as in a CDATA section.
It would not mean that element was inside the attribute.

HTML uses this for example to use < meaning less-than inside javascript:
href attribuutes.

So the designers of XML probably banned < in attributes specifcally so
that users would get a syntax error on 

<a href='<xsl:value-of select="$myVar"/>'>

rather than it parsing OK but then producing the text
&lt;xsl:value-of select="$myVar"/&gt;
rather than evaluating an XSL value-of element.


David


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