Close is not enough -- part of the attraction of s-expressions is that they are part of the language. Thus you can use the language's escaping mechanisms, or p

Close is not enough -- part of the attraction of s-expressions is that they are part of the language. Thus you can use the language's escaping mechanisms, or put the escaping in your sxml->xml filter. Preserving XML escapes is not actually a virtue. If you enter your data using S-expressions and validate on transformation, you will never have malformed XML. (Not in any way that matters, anyway: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwingolog.org%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwingolog.org%...) edit: note also that in this context, s-expressions are more about language and less about parentheses; one can have them in python too: http://wingolog.org/pub/original/rename-to-index.py.txt http://wingolog.org/pub/original/rename-to-index.py.txt, http://wingolog.org/software/original/ http://wingolog.org/software/original/