I'm catching up on my weblog reading. Jon Udell posted a response to a message I sent him pointing out that he should use XML's CDATA rather then entity encoded HTML content. (Also known as HTML-escaped content) He goes on to quote the mod_content (an RSS 1.0 extension module) specification allowing for this technique to used. (Good point. Missed that.) Userland's 0.92 format document also states that entity-encoded HTML is permitted. He concludes "clearly entity-encoding fits best with current practice. But I agree that CDATA is more desirable for a variety of reasons."
It may be the current practice, but its one that needs to change. The reasons are many if you're a content publisher or developer:
- Unnecessary file "bloat"
- Non-standard XML encoding
- It can be prone to error
- CDATA requires less processing
Unwittingly, I was just as guilty of not encoding my RSS as I should. MoveableType's default RSS templates use entity encoded HTML. Tonight I modified those templates and CDATA encoded my RSS feeds. If your newsreader can't handle my feed, please let me know. I am told that some aggregators do not handle CDATA encoded descriptions. If you have trouble reading my feeds now, please let me know.
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