Problems with cdata section. I need help/info.

[bfollowell]

I'm having a problem with Sigil inserting some code into my ebooks. It just started all of a sudden and I'm not really sure why or what this code does. I Googled the term but I'm not sure I understand it any better after reading the explanation. It mentioned something about text inside the cdata section being ignored by the parser. What exactly does this mean?

Secondly, why would Sigil just start doing this all of a sudden? The code that this is being inserted around is code that I've always used in the past and Sigil inserting a cdata section around it is a fairly recent occurrence.

Here's a prime example. At the top of any particular html file within the ebook I have a line that sets up a very small margin:

@page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; }

Now this code always comes out looking like this:

  /*<![CDATA[*/
                @page { margin-bottom: 5.000000pt; margin-top: 5.000000pt; }
  /*]]>*/

Any ideas why this is being done or why Sigil would've just started doing this all of a sudden?

Thanks for any information anyone may be able to provide.

Sincerely,
- Byron

[bfollowell]

I hate answering my own posts but...

OK, even after I posted, I kept looking through older posts and Googling and I think I've answered this one myself. At some point the Cleaning with HTML Tidy option got turned off. HTML Tidy was cleaning these up before but they started appearing once I inadvertently turned this feature off. Once I realized what was going on and turned this feature back on and resaved one of my epubs all the cdata references disappeared.

I thought I'd post what I found out in case anyone else ever runs into a similar situation.

- Byron

[DaleDe]

You do realize that they don't hurt anything don't you?

[bfollowell]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

You do realize that they don't hurt anything don't you?

No, actually I don't. As I alluded to in my OP, I really don't understand much of anything about them at all.

From what little I do understand, it sound like whatever is in the cdata section is ignored. If that's the case, my margin section would have been ignored and I'm not really sure why.

- Byron

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by bfollowell

No, actually I don't. As I alluded to in my OP, I really don't understand much of anything about them at all.

From what little I do understand, it sound like whatever is in the cdata section is ignored. If that's the case, my margin section would have been ignored and I'm not really sure why.

- Byron

No, the CDATA is inside comments. It would be ignored except by an application like RSS readers that needs it. The margin section would not be ignored. It is a mechanism to have certain reading applications deal with constructs they wouldn't otherwise understand.

[bfollowell]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

No, the CDATA is inside comments. It would be ignored except by an application like RSS readers that needs it. The margin section would not be ignored. It is a mechanism to have certain reading applications deal with constructs they wouldn't otherwise understand.

OK, that helps a little bit. Thanks for helping clear things up, even if they're just about as clear as mud. Either way, I found out why I wasn't seeing them before and why I am now, as well as knowing they won't hurt anything whether I see them or not.

Thanks for info.

- Byron

[Toxaris]

If you put your layour code in an external stylesheet, the code will not be added of course.
As a bonus you don't have to add it to each file, just a reference.