What is the difference between & and & for & (ampersand)?
What should be used with UTF-8?
& or & what should be used for & (ampersand) if we are using UTF-8 in an XHTML document?
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4 Answers
Both are character references and refer to the same character (AMPERSAND, U+0026). & is a named or entity character reference and & is a numerical character reference.
In fact, & is actually just a substitution for & (see list of character entities):
<!ENTITY amp CDATA "&" -- ampersand, U+0026 ISOnum -->
Entities: Handling Special Content
According to O'Reilly, you should be using & in XML. UTF-8 is quite a bit different. Unicode Character 'AMPERSAND' (U+0026)
If you both save your file in UTF-8 and even specify it for strict browsers:
<head><meta charset="utf-8">
I would guess that you can also just use the & character. All new browsers will support it and UTF-8.
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