[XML-SIG] CDATA sections still not handled

[Norman Walsh]

/ matt <matt@virtualspectator.com> was heard to say:
| happend to use things like "<" very often, then CDATA seems to give me and
| "initial" way to write this in a plain, raw form, without translating it to
| entity references first.

In the interest of technical accuracy, I'll point out that there's nothing
that says a processor is not allowed to use CDATA to escape text. (It might
be an interesting switch on a serializer: use CDATA for any text node that
contains more than 5% entity references or something...)

| > Don't do that. I'm serious. You don't say exactly what problem you're
| > trying to solve, but the solution you're outlining is ugly and
| > fragile. (IMHO, naturally.)
| 
| No it's not.  If I put base64 encoded gzip compressed versions of the same
| "escaped xml fragments" that I want to hide, then that would seem to make you
| happy.  These xml documents are a transport, and when a transpot is interpreted
| then certain tags may mean do something with the character data of this node. 
| All seems pretty normal to me.

Ok, perhaps I overstated the case. I should have said something like "in
most cases that's going to be ugly and fragile".

XML isn't particularly good at wrapping up other chunks of XML. Using
CDATA sections is dangerous if there's any chance that the text you're
wrapping up might contain "]]>". For example, if one of the documents
that you're wrapping up has its own CDATA section.

| through it and find the improper formatting in the message.  However, if the
| message has been translated into entity references, then forget it, you may as
| well be looking at binary in a hex editor in some instances. 

Yes. That's a problem. Maybe you need that special-purpose serializer
I alluded to above.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | It is not impossibilities which fill us
http://nwalsh.com/            | with the deepest despair, but
                              | possibilities which we have failed to
                              | realize.--Robert Mallet