diff --git a/REQUIRE b/REQUIRE
index 0849f15..4138346 100644
--- a/REQUIRE
+++ b/REQUIRE
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 julia 0.3
-Compat
+Compat 0.7.16
 @windows WinRPM
diff --git a/src/LightXML.jl b/src/LightXML.jl
index ec1e7fb..5baf6c8 100644
--- a/src/LightXML.jl
+++ b/src/LightXML.jl
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ VERSION >= v"0.4.0-dev+6521" && __precompile__()
 
 module LightXML
 
-using Compat
+using Compat; import Compat.String
 
 # iteratorsize is new in 0.5, declare it here for older versions. However,
 # we do not actually support calling these, since the traits are not defined
diff --git a/src/cdata.jl b/src/cdata.jl
index d92a7f0..582beb0 100644
--- a/src/cdata.jl
+++ b/src/cdata.jl
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-function new_cdatanode(xdoc::XMLDocument, txt::ASCIIString)
+function new_cdatanode(xdoc::XMLDocument, txt::String)
         p = ccall((:xmlNewCDataBlock,libxml2), Xptr, (Xptr, Xstr, Cint), xdoc.ptr, txt, length(txt)+1)
         XMLNode(p)
 end
 
-add_cdata(xdoc::XMLDocument, x::XMLElement, txt::ASCIIString) = add_child(x, new_cdatanode(xdoc,txt))
+add_cdata(xdoc::XMLDocument, x::XMLElement, txt::String) = add_child(x, new_cdatanode(xdoc,txt))