Character entity reference
In the markup languages SGML, HTML, XHTML and XML, a character entity reference is a reference to a particular kind of named entity that has been predefined or explicitly declared in a Document Type Definition (DTD). The replacement text of the entity consists of a single character from the Universal Character Set/Unicode. The purpose of a character entity reference is to provide a way to refer to a character that is not universally encodable.
Actually, in XML at least, the term "character entity reference" is incorrect. XML has two relevant concepts: a "predefined entity reference" is a reference to one of the special characters denoted by <
, >
, &
, "
, or '
; while a "character reference" (or "numeric character reference") is a construct such as  
that refers to a character by means of its numeric Unicode codepoint. Although in popular usage character references are often called "entity references" or even "entities", this usage is wrong. A character reference is a reference to a character, not to an entity.
See also
- SGML entity
- Character encodings in HTML
- Numeric character reference
- List of XML and HTML character entity references
External links
- Entities Table
- A Simple Character Entity Chart
- Browser Support for Entities (currently / not available)