Entities
What's an entity? How'd I get the paragraph to tab over? And how do I
add neat characters? Well, I don't think you're going
to enter characters using ASCII code. You do all this with entities.
Webester's Dictionary defines an entity as "something that has a real
existence." It's a "thing." Well, I'm not going to argue
with Webster, he's a smart guy, and he probably has better lawyers than I
do. But when it comes to the web, entities are a little
more than just "something that has a real existence." Entities are a
series of symbols folling an ampersand (&) symbol and
ending with a semicolon (;). You can use them to write brackets. If you
tried to write a bracket within a HTML document, the
browser would intrept it as a tag. So, you ask, "What about writing an
ampersand in my HTML document?" well, you guessed
it, you use an entity. I used an entity to tab into my paragraphs.
Entities are used to write in anything that you thought you
couldn't write into a web page. Like the "less than" bracket (<). And
the other things not found on the keyboard like letters with accents
(á). You ask, "How come I can't use the 'less than' bracket?".
It's because that particular bracket is intrepreted (by your browser) as
an HTML tag. Entities are a nice little thing. "How do you remember all of
them?" There are quite a few entities in existence. So, you find some
source that has them all and write them down, photocopy it, or print it
out, whatever floats your boat. Need a list of the entities? Click
here.
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