| Character | Entity Reference | Numeric References1 | Escape Sequence |
| ampersand ( & ) | & | & , & | \& |
| apostrophe ( ' ) | ' | ' , ' | \' |
| greater-than sign ( > ) | > | > , > | \> |
| less-than sign ( < ) | < | < , < | \< |
| quotation mark ( " ) | " | " , " | \" |
| slash ( \ ) | | \ , \ | \\ |
1 - Unicode code points in decimal and hexidecimal
There are several ways to express the above characters as literals in XML data:
- by character code;
- by escape sequence; this is why the escape character '\' must also be escaped when intended literally;
- In a CDATA block, :
<![CDATA["One & two are < four"]]>
The only data that cannot be placed inside a CDATA block is the end delimiter ( ]]> ).