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XML is a bit more special/first class to Claude because it uses XML for tool calling:

    <antml:invoke name="Read">                                                    
      <antml:parameter name="file_path">/path/to/file</antml:parameter>             
      <antml:parameter name="offset">100</antml:parameter>                          
      <antml:parameter name="limit">50</antml:parameter>                            
    </antml:invoke>

I'm sure Claude can handle any delimiter and pseudo markup you throw at it, but one benefit of XML delimiters over quotation marks is that you repeat the delimiter name at the end, which I'd imagine might help if its contents are long (it certainly helps humans).

by bear3r1 hours ago|

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the antml: namespace prefix is doing extra work here too -- even if user input contains invoke tags, they won't collide with tool calls because the namespace differs. not just xml for structure but namespaced xml for isolation.

by jinushaun5 hours ago|

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Except quotation marks look like regular text. I regularly use quotes in prompts for, ya know, quotes.

by wolttam5 hours ago|

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The GP isn't suggesting to literally use quotes as the delimiter when prompting LLMs. They're pointing out that we humans already use delimiters in our natural language (quotation marks to delimit quotes). They're suggesting that delimiters of any kind may be helpful in the context of LLM prompting, which to me makes intuitive sense. That Claude is using XML is merely a convention.

by 1 hours ago|

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