Character-escape (MSSCHAR) in HTML?

Bert Bos (bert@let.rug.nl)
Fri, 9 Sep 1994 16:01:53 +0200 (METDST)

If I read the SGML standard correctly, it should be possible to define
an escape character that turns any character into data. SGML calls it
an MSSCHAR (markup-scan-suppress character).

If we add, e.g.,

BSLASH MSSCHAR 92

to the SYNTAX/FUNCTION section of the SGML declaration, we could write
thinks like

<P>A paragraph starts with a \<P> tag.

instead of

<P>A paragraph starts with a &lt;P> tag.

As long as HTML or SGML editors are not in widespread use, this could
help authors somewhat. Other examples are:

<LI LABEL="\"">is called double quote.

the entity \&folder; looks like &folder;

Unfortunately, sgmls can't handle this...

Bert

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