What is the significance of CDATA in XML parsing and how does it affect PHP usage?

CDATA in XML parsing is significant when dealing with special characters like "<" and "&" that could potentially break the XML structure. Using CDATA allows these characters to be included in the XML data without causing parsing errors. In PHP, CDATA can be utilized by wrapping the data in <![CDATA[ ]]> tags to ensure that special characters are treated as literal text. 

$xmlData = &#039;&lt;data&gt;&lt;![CDATA[This is some &lt;b&gt;bold&lt;/b&gt; text &amp; special characters]]&gt;&lt;/data&gt;&#039;;
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xmlData);
echo $xml-&gt;data;

Keywords

CDATA XML parsing PHP usage significance

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