Problem getting XML properly formatted

Question

Hi,

I use classes (autogenerated from a schema) to generate xml documents. It has worked fine, until now, when I need to use inline HTML elements. I've tried several different methods, but as soon as I use the inline HTML, the "<" and ">" gets replaced with %lt; etc.

Example:

<meta>
    <name>test</name>
    <value>test <br />new row</value>
</meta>

becomes "destroyed" later on when trying to get it as a string for database storage, the value is changed to:

    <value>test &lt;br /&gt;new row</value>

How is it possible to keep the angle brackets intact?

Answer 1

You need to use CDATA sections for XML (or XML like) content.

Answer 2

The XML write is escaping the reserved characters such as <, > etc. If you're reading the text back using a Xml reader then your < will be correctly read as <.