Alternatives to XML?

[Frank Millman]

"Joonas Liik"  wrote in message 
news:CAB1GNpTP0GD4s4kx07r1ujRNuXtOij4vF5uNYE1cFr_Y0xvi1g at mail.gmail.com...

> something like.. (untested)

def escape(untrusted_string):
    ''' Use on the user provided strings to render them inert for storage
      escaping & ensures that the user cant type sth like '>' in
source and have it magically decode as '>'
    '''
    return untrusted_string.replace("&","&").replace("<",
"<").replace(">", ">")

def unescape(escaped_string):
    '''Once the user string is retreived from storage use this
function to restore it to its original form'''
    return escaped_string.replace("<","<").replace(">",
">").replace("&", "&")

> i should note tho that this example is very ad-hoc, i'm no xml expert just 
> know a bit about xml entities.  if you decide to go this route there are 
> probably some much better tested functions out there to escape text for 
> storage in xml documents.

Thanks very much, Joonas.

I understand now, and it seems to work fine.

As a bonus, I can now include '&' in my attributes in the future if the need 
arises.

Much appreciated.

Frank