#PCDATA definition??

Stan Newton (newtonjs@vnet.net)
Wed, 26 Oct 94 21:34:12 EDT

The HTML 2.0 DTD uses #PCDATA in the definition of allowed content for
%text ENTITY
%pre.content ENTITY
Title tag
Option tag
TextArea tag

The only definition I could find for #PCDATA (from an HTMLPLUS draft,
I think) says:

PCDATA
"text occurring in a context in which markup and entity references may occur"

This should be contrasted with the definition for CDATA (same source)
"text which doesn't include markup or entity references"

OK, now I'm (once again) confused. These ambiguous definitions don't really
seem to help.

Yesterday's message thread on attribute values, started by Keith Ball,
contained examples for what I understood to be CDATA attribute values but
containing expanded characters (such as > for >). I thought this kind of
character escaping is what was meant by 'entity references' and would have
been prevented by the definition above.

Conversely, I don't think that you really mean that markup (highlighting?)
should be allowed in the document Title text box, in the listbox entries
provided by the Option tags, or in the TextArea text box.

Could somehow set me straight on this or perhaps direct me to a reference
that can help me. More directly, for purposes of this Working Group,
What is the intention for content within the tags listed above?
Stan Newton
Newton Computing Solutions