JavaScript CDATA

1. What Is a CDATA Section
2. When Is Using a CDATA Section Necessary in JavaScript

This article will teach about the CDATA section in JavaScript. First, we will learn what the CDATA is and how it works.

We will also know where and when to use the CDATA section in JavaScript.

What Is a CDATA Section

The CDATA section object represents a CDATA in a document. It contains text that a parser will not parse.

The tags inside a CDATA will not be treated as markup and entities. We use the CDATA to mark a section of an XML document so that the XML parser interprets it only as character data and not markup data.

As we learned what the CDATA section is, now we will discuss when it is necessary to use the CDATA section in JavaScript.

When Is Using a CDATA Section Necessary in JavaScript

Sometimes JavaScript code contains a lot of "< or >" or "&" characters. When we use symbols like < and > or & to compare two integers etc., within JavaScript.

To avoid parsing these symbols < or > and & we use the CDATA section tag (<script>....</script>) in JavaScript. The parser ignores everything inside a CDATA section.

To ensure that the XHTML validation works correctly on JavaScript that we use in the HTML page, we use the CDATA section tag. We use the section tag like this.

Example code:

<script>
   //<![CDATA[
      document.write("> or <");
   //]]>
</script>

Using the CDATA section tag within a script is necessary to avoid XML errors in XHTML validation. The CDATA tells the browser to display the text used in JavaScript.

When the browsers treat the markup as XML, we use the following CDATA tag code in JavaScript.

Example code:

<script>
<![CDATA[
    ...code...
]]>
</script>

When the browsers treat the markup as HTML, we use the following CDATA tag code in JavaScript.

Example code:

<script>
    ...code...
</script>

So this is how we use the CDATA section tag in JavaScript.

We hope you find this article helpful in understanding the use of the CDATA in JavaScript.