There are some special characters that are used by the XML syntax. If used within elements and attributes they needed to be escaped or encapsulated. There a 2 ways to handle these.
Not all special characters are allowed. Please refer to the XML schema files for more information.
The preferred method is to replace these by the corresponding XML notation:
| Character | XML notation |
|---|---|
< | < |
> | > |
& | & |
" | " |
' | ' |
Most frameworks do this replacement automatically.
Example for article-description “Black & White”:
<item article-number="1">
quantity="2"
unit-price-gross="17.40"
tax-rate="19">Black & white</item>As an alternative you can encapsulate the element with <![CDATA[ ... ]]>.
Example for article-description “Black & White”
<item article-number="1">
quantity="2"
unit-price-gross="17.40"
tax-rate="19"><![CDATA[Black & White]]></item>Note: This only works within elements, not within attributes.
Don't use CDATA for credentials.
Umlauts have to be sent as they are (ä, ö, ...). Escaping for these characters is not recommended.
If an escaping is necessary for some reason, please use UTF-8 escaping.
Examples
| Character | Decimal | Hexadecimal |
|---|---|---|
ü | ü | ü |
Ü | Ü | Ü |
ö | ö | ö |
Ö | Ö | Ö |
| ... | ... | ... |
Please do not use HTML escaping (ü for ü). HTML escaping will cause type mismatches and encoding errors.