What's a Notation?

It's just a name, with an associated public identifier, which can be applied to unparsed entities and also, when used in a NOTATION attribute, to the content of elements.

The name itself doesn't mean anything, but (with luck) it or the public ID will tell how to deal with the data to which it's attached.

Back-link to spec

Copyright © 1998, Tim Bray. All rights reserved.