Re: [xml-dev] <!-- -- -->

Joe Forrest <> wrote:

| [15] Comment ::= '<!--' ((Char - '-') | ('-' (Char - '-')))* '-->' 
| comments cannot allow "--" in the content.
| 
| What then on the earth is the meaning of:  "For compatibility, the 
| string "--" (double-hyphen) must not occur within comments"

This is to ensure that comment syntax in XML - which is a considerable
simplification - remains consistent with SGML syntax.   See, e.g. [91] and
[92] here (by default, MDO is '<!', MDC is '>' and COM is '--'):

 http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/crism/sgmldefs.html#[91]  

SGML allows *multiple* comments within a single comment declaration, each
comment delimited by a pair of double-hyphens.  For the full syntax in
plain English, see e.g., Section 3.2.5 in RFC 1866:

 http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1866.html