Represent space and tab in XML tag?

Question

How can space and tab be represented in an XML tag?

Are there any special characters that can represent them?

score 71 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 05 '09 at 05:13

71

I think you could use an actual space or tab directly in XML document, but if you are looking for special characters to represent them so that text processors can't mess them up, then it's:

space = &#032;
tab   = &#009;

answered Feb 05 '09 at 05:13

galets

17,802
19
72
101

12

...and if you want a non-breaking space you could also use – danicotra Mar 30 '13 at 12:41
1

tab = doesn't work for me, for Enter key its , no numeric – Wasim A. Jun 18 '13 at 05:29
1

where can i find a list of these "special characters", and what are they called? – tenwest Jun 25 '15 at 22:31

score 28 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 22 '21 at 16:33

28

Works for me

\n = &#xA;
\r = &#xD;
\t = &#x9;
space = &#x20;

Here is an example on how to use them in XML

<KeyWord name="hello&#x9;" />

edited Nov 22 '21 at 16:33

dr0i

2,380
2
19
36

answered Jun 18 '13 at 05:38

Wasim A.

9,660
22
90
120

kjhughes · Answer 3 · 2018-08-14T16:21:23.073

^{New, expanded answer to an old, commonly asked question...}

Whitespace in XML Component Names

Summary: Whitespace characters are not permitted in XML element or attribute names.

Here are the main Unicode code points related to whitespace:

#x0009 CHARACTER TABULATION
#x0020 SPACE
#x000A LINE FEED (LF)
#x000D CARRIAGE RETURN (CR)
#x00A0 NO-BREAK SPACE
[#x2002-#x200A] EN SPACE through HAIR SPACE
#x205F MEDIUM MATHEMATICAL SPACE
#x3000 IDEOGRAPHIC SPACE

None of these code points are permitted by the W3C XML BNF for XML names:

NameStartChar ::= ":" | [A-Z] | "_" | [a-z] | [#xC0-#xD6] | [#xD8-#xF6] |
                  [#xF8-#x2FF] | [#x370-#x37D] | [#x37F-#x1FFF] |
                  [#x200C-#x200D] | [#x2070-#x218F] | [#x2C00-#x2FEF] |
                  [#x3001-#xD7FF] | [#xF900-#xFDCF] | [#xFDF0-#xFFFD] |
                  [#x10000-#xEFFFF]
NameChar      ::= NameStartChar | "-" | "." | [0-9] | #xB7 | [#x0300-#x036F] |
                  [#x203F-#x2040]
Name          ::= NameStartChar (NameChar)*

Whitespace in XML Content (Not Component Names)

Summary: Whitespace characters are, of course, permitted in XML content.

All of the above whitespace codepoints are permitted in XML content by the W3C XML BNF for Char:

Char ::= #x9 | #xA | #xD | [#x20-#xD7FF] | [#xE000-#xFFFD] | [#x10000-#x10FFFF]
/* any Unicode character, excluding the surrogate blocks, FFFE, and FFFF. */

Unicode code points can be inserted as character references. Both decimal &#decimal; and hexadecimal &#xhex; forms are supported.

Hexadecimal Decimal Unicode Name
	 or 	 CHARACTER TABULATION

 or 
 LINE FEED (LF)
 or  CARRIAGE RETURN (CR)
  or   SPACE
  or   NO-BREAK SPACE

score 11 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 05 '09 at 09:45

You cannot have spaces and tabs in the tag (i.e., name) of an XML elements, see the specs: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#NT-STag. Beside alphanumeric characters, colon, underscore, dash and dot characters are allowed in a name, and the first letter cannot be a dash or a dot. Certain unicode characters are also permitted, without actually double-checking, I'd say that these are international letters.

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 10 '19 at 14:26

Illegal XML Tag Name Characters can be encoded using Unicode UCS-2. This works very nicely. I am using it to create XML that gets turned into json (JPath is weak compared to XPath). Notice the handling of spaces, (, ) characters. Unicode UCS-2 Code Chart: http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ucs2.html

        tag.Name = tag.Name.Replace(" ", "_x0020_");
        tag.Name = tag.Name.Replace("(", "_x0028_");
        tag.Name = tag.Name.Replace(")", "_x0029_");

XML:

  <Internal_x0020_Chargeback_x0020_ID>{CHARGEBACKCODE}</Internal_x0020_Chargeback_x0020_ID>
  <Bill_x0020_To>{CHARGEBACKCODE}</Bill_x0020_To>
  <Operator_x0020_or_x0020_Directly_x0020_Responsible_x0020_Individual_x0020__x0028_DRI_x0029_>zzz@yyy.gov</Operator_x0020_or_x0020_Directly_x0020_Responsible_x0020_Individual_x0020__x0028_DRI_x0029_>

transformed to json via json.net:

    "Internal Chargeback ID": "{CHARGEBACKCODE}",
    "Bill To": "{CHARGEBACKCODE}",
    "Operator or Directly Responsible Individual (DRI)": "xxx@yyy.gov",

This answer tracks with what I have seen: A spreadsheet parsing tool, the flowgear Excel node, translates sheet names and column names into xml tag names. Spaces are replaced by "_x0020_" — R.D. Alkire, Feb 22 '23 at 16:27

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 05 '09 at 12:33

3

If you are talking about the issue where multiple and non-space whitespace characters are stripped specifically from attribute values, then yes, encoding them as character references such as 	 will fix it.

answered Feb 05 '09 at 12:33

bobince

528,062
107
651
834

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 10 '14 at 12:48

For me, to make it work I need to encode hex value of space within CDATA xml element, so that post parsing it adds up just as in the htm webgae & when viewed in browser just displays a space!. ( all above ideas & answers are useful )

<my-xml-element><![CDATA[&#x20;]]></my-xml-element>

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 05 '14 at 23:07

I had the same issue and none of the above answers solved the problem, so I tried something very straight-forward: I just putted in my strings.xml \n\t

The complete String looks like this <string name="premium_features_listing_3">- Automatische Aktualisierung der\n\tDatenbank</string>

Results in:

Automatische Aktualisierung der

Datenbank

(with no extra line in between)

Maybe it will help others. Regards

Represent space and tab in XML tag?

8 Answers8

Whitespace in XML Component Names

Whitespace in XML Content (Not Component Names)

Linked

Related