Rational® ClearCase® XML Diff Merge appropriately translates and escapes special markup characters, for example, XML predefined entities like the less than symbol (<), greater than symbol (>), quotation mark ("), apostrophe ('), and ampersand (&). This allows you to see and deal with the actual characters in the display and editor.
For example, if you type <foo> in a text node, it displays as <foo>. However, when the merge output is written, the text is correctly escaped as <foo>. Or, when editing, you could type <foo> and see <foo> in the display.
But how do you type a predefined entity like & in a text node so that it is displayed as & in the display? This "escape" problem is common in SGML and XML applications.
The solution is to enter &amp;. The first sequence is translated to &, followed by amp;. The displayed result is &.
Of course, the next time you edit the file, the source will contain &, which would be translated to &. To fix the display, you would have to reapply the escape sequence.