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<title>Entities</title>
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<td valign="top" class="NAME">Entities</td>
<td valign="top" class="COMPATIBILITY">&nbsp;</td>
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<p>An XML entity can best be
understood as a macro replacement facility, in which the replacement
can be either parsed (the text becomes part of the XML document) or
unparsed. If unparsed, the entity declaration points to external
binary data that cannot be parsed. Additionally, the replacement text
for parsed entities can come from a string or the contents of an
external file. During parsing, a parsed entity reference is replaced
by the substitution text that is specified in the entity declaration.
The replacement text is then reparsed until no more entity or
character references remain.</p>

<p>To simplify document parsing, two distinct types of entities are used
in different situations: general and parameter. The basic syntax for
referencing both entity types is almost identical, but specific rules
apply to where each type can be used.</p>
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