XML4 min read

XML CDATA & Escape Characters

How to handle special characters (&, <, >) using XML entities and unparsed CDATA blocks.

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Because XML uses characters like < and & for markup, placing raw special characters inside element text will break parsers.

Predefined XML Entities

  • &lt; → < (less than)
  • &gt; → > (greater than)
  • &amp; → & (ampersand)
  • &quot; → " (double quote)
  • &apos; → ' (apostrophe)

CDATA Sections (Character Data)

When storing code snippets, HTML tags, or formulas with many special characters, wrapping the text in a <![CDATA[ ... ]]> block instructs the XML parser to treat everything inside as literal text.