XML entity references

Question

I need to represent special characters like superscripts, copyright symbols etc in XML. What's the best way to do this?

I'm confused as XML defines 5 entity references for "<" , ">" etc. I always use < and > but could, or should, I use Unicode decimal, U+003C, instead? Or will an XML processor treat these the same as if I'd typed "<" and error as it's a reserved character?

For non-reserved characters, eg the copyright symbol, is it enough to insert the Unicode (U+00A9) into the XML or should I define an entity reference in my Schema?

Thanks ;-)

Answer 1

I'm confused as XML defines 5 entity references for "<" , ">" etc. I always use < and > but could, or should, I use Unicode decimal, U+003C, instead? Or will an XML processor treat these the same as if I'd typed "<" and error as it's a reserved character?

A raw < would be an error (since it means "Start of tag").

For non-reserved characters, eg the copyright symbol, is it enough to insert the Unicode (U+00A9) into the XML or should I define an entity reference in my Schema?

Using the actual character is fine (and generally preferred to using an entity as it is more readable (and takes marginally fewer bytes).