Date format in attributes of local XML API

I'm trying to parse XML from various XML services of the monastery and got bitten by entities in attributes:

<info site="http://perlmonks.org/" sitename="PerlMonks" ticker_id="507
+310" gentimeGMT="2015-02-14 17:40:04" xmlstyle="clean" xmlmaker="XML:
+:Fling 1.001" fetch_num="109" delta_since="2015-02-14 17:29:58&amp;nb
+sp;GMT" min_poll_seconds="600">Rendered by the Noderep XML Ticker</in
+fo>
[download]

while entities in attributes seem to be allowed this format of delta_since="2015-02-14 17:29:58&nbsp;GMT" looks brokenš.

(compare also gentimeGMT="2015-02-14 17:40:04")

Could someone enlighten me if and why that's necessary?

Otherwise should it better be changed to delta_since="2015-02-14 17:29:58 GMT"?

Or are there date-time parsers requiring these entities?

Cheers Rolf

PS: Je suis Charlie!

š) (or do I miss something in the XML specification?)

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Re: Date format in attributes of local XML API by N-Wing (Deacon) on Feb 15, 2015 at 06:41 UTC
Your example is from noderep xml ticker, which appears to be getting the double-escape of the space as `&nbsp;` from calling parseTimeInString (htmlcode). I'm guessing that the entity was inserted accidentally (see patch diff), so it is probably safe to remove the two ` ` completely in that htmlcode (lines 46 and 49). P.S.: In case there was a legitimate reason for that patch, I didn't create my own since there isn't enough room in the patch reason to explain this. `--== [N] ==--`	[reply]
Re^2: Date format in attributes of local XML API (HTML) by tye (Sage) on Feb 15, 2015 at 19:29 UTC
parseTimeInString is returning HTML. The ` ` is useful in some cases. The XML tickers should `s/ / /g` or parseTimeInString should get another argument specifying that HTML isn't wanted. - tye	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Date format in attributes of local XML API (HTML) by N-Wing (Deacon) on Feb 15, 2015 at 21:11 UTC
The ` ` is useful in some cases. It is used inconsistently, though. Both times ` ` is used (`'%b %d, %Y at %H:%M %Z'` and `/%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z/`), the other spaces are just normal spaces. I would say just replace the ` ` with normal spaces, but I don't know if the non-breaking space was intentionally included to keep the time zone information with the time. `--== [N] ==--`	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Date format in attributes of local XML API (HTML) by tye (Sage) on Feb 15, 2015 at 21:40 UTC
Re^5: Date format in attributes of local XML API (HTML) by LanX (Saint) on Feb 15, 2015 at 22:13 UTC