Character references

XML defines the characters available for text as ISO/IEC 10646 (Unicode) supporting UTF-8 and UTF-16.

Character references:

• Allow you to specify an ISO/IEC 10646 character code
• Preceded by:
  • &# if specified in decimal
  • &#x if specified in hexadecimal
• For example:
  • &#163 is the same as £
  • &#xA3 is the same as £
  • £ also represents £ (this is because the HTML DTD includes it!)