[xml] Difference between PCDATA and CDATA in DTD

PCDATA – parsed character data. It parses all the data in an XML document.

Example:

<family>
    <mother>mom</mother>
    <father>dad</father>
</family>

Here, the <family> element contains 2 more elements: <mother> and <father>. So it parses further to get the text of mother and father to give the text value of family as “mom dad”

CDATA – unparsed character Data. This is the data that should not be parsed further in an xml document.

<family>
    <![CDATA[ 
       <mother>mom</mother>
       <father>dad</father>
    ]]>
</family>

Here, the text value of family will be <mother>mom</mother><father>dad</father>.