3 ms·

> Atom though unambiguously specifies that the <title> (and other) elements should be treated as plaintext unless specified otherwise with the type attribute.

> Atom though unambiguously specifies that the <title> (and other) elements should be treated as plaintext unless specified otherwise with the type attribute. I haven't looked at the part of the Atom spec you're talking about, but what does "treat as plaintext" mean when a title could be the literal text "</title><script src=..."

LinAGKar 2y ago
Then the reader should display that as text, and not try to parse it. Assuming that's actually the textual content of the <title> element, which would then be serialized <title><![CDATA[</title><script src=...]]></title> or <title></title><script src=...</title>. If the markup reads <title></title><script src=...</title>, that would probably mean you've got a buggy feed generator constructing the markup by hand instead of using an XML serializer. Based on the how I understand the RSS spec, a feed could possibly contain <title><![CDATA[<i>Title</i>]]></title> and expect the title to be italic, but in Atom it would have to be <title type="html"><![CDATA[<i>Title</i>]]></title> to render as italic, otherwise the "<i>Title</i>" would be written out literally by a compliant reader.
kevincox 2y ago
No. In both RSS and Atom the content of the title tag is a string (and is encoded into the XML as required). The question is just if if that string should be treated as text/plain or text/HTML. RSS doesn't specify. This type of ambiguity is the main reason that I recommend using Atom.
- ttepasse 2y ago
  Atom has even three variants of the content model, one where the content is XHTML. As pure text <atom:title atom:type="text">E = mc²</atom:title> As entity-encoded “HTML”: <atom:title atom:type="html>E = mc<sup>2</sup></atom:title> Or as directly embedded XHTML: <atom:title atom:type="xhtml> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <var>E</var> = <var>m</var><var>c</var><sup>2</sup> </div> <atom:title> (The superfluous div element seems to be a result of a compromise for the early 2000s web environment, afair.)

LinAGKar 2y ago

Then the reader should display that as text, and not try to parse it. Assuming that's actually the textual content of the <title> element, which would then be serialized <title><![CDATA[</title><script src=...]]></title> or <title></title><script src=...</title>. If the markup reads <title></title><script src=...</title>, that would probably mean you've got a buggy feed generator constructing the markup by hand instead of using an XML serializer. Based on the how I understand the RSS spec, a feed could possibly contain <title><![CDATA[<i>Title</i>]]></title> and expect the title to be italic, but in Atom it would have to be <title type="html"><![CDATA[<i>Title</i>]]></title> to render as italic, otherwise the "<i>Title</i>" would be written out literally by a compliant reader.

kevincox 2y ago

No. In both RSS and Atom the content of the title tag is a string (and is encoded into the XML as required). The question is just if if that string should be treated as text/plain or text/HTML. RSS doesn't specify. This type of ambiguity is the main reason that I recommend using Atom.

ttepasse 2y ago
Atom has even three variants of the content model, one where the content is XHTML. As pure text <atom:title atom:type="text">E = mc²</atom:title> As entity-encoded “HTML”: <atom:title atom:type="html>E = mc<sup>2</sup></atom:title> Or as directly embedded XHTML: <atom:title atom:type="xhtml> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <var>E</var> = <var>m</var><var>c</var><sup>2</sup> </div> <atom:title> (The superfluous div element seems to be a result of a compromise for the early 2000s web environment, afair.)