CDATA sections

• Sometimes there is a need to pass a string of characters to an application without parsing them
• XML has the reserved characters < and &
• The following markup is therefore illegal:

   <answer>27 when x < 3 </answer>

• The correct way is to put the string not to be parsed in a CDATA section:

   <answer><![CDATA[ 27 when x < 3 ]]</answer>

• Mainly used when the text contains a large and unknown number of reserved characters