I’m sorry for neglecting to respond to this but there a problems with the proposed change that I’m not sure can be resolved.

The change proposed is to add the sentence “Use an HTML decimal entity.” to the error message.

The first problem with that is, the HTML spec doesn’t define anything called an “HTML decimal entity”.

What the spec does define is “character references”:

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/syntax.html#character-references

Named character references

Decimal numeric character reference

Hexadecimal numeric character reference

I’m not sure which of those the proposed text is meant to correspond to. If it’s proposing to use numeric character references, then there’s no reason to advise the use of decimal numeric character references rather than hexadecimal numeric character references.

And anyway,  (the specific problem reference that this issue cites) is actually already a decimal character reference — it’s just a reference to character that the HTML spec prohibits.

So was the intent here actually to instead suggest the use of named character references? — e.g., as alluded to in #111, —?

If so, then there’s problem with that — because it would be wrong to change to the error message to suggest the use of named character references rather than numeric character references. The reason is, there’s nothing wrong with using numeric character references, as long as they’re the right ones.

The problem the checker is reporting here is simply the use of an incorrect character reference. When the checker sees the reference , it doesn’t actually know that you’re trying to use an em dash. Instead, it could be that you intended to type ő (LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH DOUBLE ACUTE).

So all the checker knows is that you’ve used a character reference to a prohibited character — specifically, to a character in the C1 controls range. So all the checker can usefully report in this case is basically, Don’t do that. Which is what it’s already reporting.

Specifically, if we were to add to the error message a sentence in the form "Use a foo character reference instead.”, I can’t see what we’d put for the foo part.

In fact, more generally, if we add something in the form "Use foo instead.”, I can’t see what to put for foo.

A numeric character reference expanded to the C1 controls range. #111

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