> Section 2.5, "Comments", states that "For compatibility, the string "--"
> (double-hyphen) must not occur within comments."
>
> I figured that this meant the spec authors were not totally happy
> with this restriction, but they added it for SGML compatibility
> reasons and that "--" really was not allowed in comments. However,
> both MSXML and Aelfred allow it. XP does not.
> Who is correct? Does "for compatibility" mean the parser is not
> required to support this if it is not interested in SGML
> compatibility? Is this something special about comments?
XP is correct. This constraint is built directly into the grammatical
production:
[15] Comment ::= '<!--' ((Char - '-') | ('-' (Char - '-')))* '-->'
All the best,
David
--
David Megginson david@megginson.com
http://www.megginson.com/