In order to render the character, the format &name is used for example, & renders as &. The "Character" column shows the character, if it is renderable. The "Name" column mentions the entity's name. The table below lists the five XML predefined entities. XML also allows other named entities of any size to be defined on a per-document basis. The entities can be explicitly declared in a DTD, as well, but if this is done, the replacement text must be the same as the built-in definitions. The XML specification defines five "predefined entities" representing special characters, and requires that all XML processors honor them. The XML specification does not use the term "character entity" or "character entity reference". The format is the same as for any entity reference:
![capital e with tilde html capital e with tilde html](https://www.lifewire.com/thmb/onoVQgfnrCXty2UnTvk5yd6r8W4=/1920x1080/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/CedillaFeaturephoto-0ccdd00e831d4481b4d4cd30bafdc95e.jpg)
The entity must either be predefined (built-in to the markup language) or explicitly declared in a Document Type Definition (DTD). In contrast, a character entity reference refers to a character by the name of an entity which has the desired character as its replacement text. The hhhh may mix uppercase and lowercase, though uppercase is the usual style.
![capital e with tilde html capital e with tilde html](https://www.utf8icons.com/character_image/7431-latin-letter-small-capital-e.png)
The nnnn or hhhh may be any number of digits and may include leading zeros. The x must be lowercase in XML documents.
Capital e with tilde html code#
Where nnnn is the code point in decimal form, and hhhh is the code point in hexadecimal form.
![capital e with tilde html capital e with tilde html](https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/rLc1Ceu5xEwAPxr46ppu3WqZ4xE=/275x250/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-131587103-5c90f9b6c9e77c0001e11e00.jpg)
4 Entities representing special characters in XHTMLĪ numeric character reference refers to a character by its Universal Character Set/ Unicode code point, and uses the format.