Re: Error with XML-INTO caused by non-printable characters

[Scott Klement <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Consider reading the data into Unicode fields instead of EBCDIC fields.  
This will allow the existing characters (assuming they really are 
characters and are properly encoded -- which is probable) to be read 
properly into RPG fields.

Once in RPG, you can convert the ones you don't want to accept into 
something else.  For example, replace curly quotes with straight quotes, 
etc.  Then when you do convert them to EBCDIC, they'll be in the best 
format they can be in.

I don't think it's a good idea to use something like 'tr' or SQL to 
change the characters while the document is still in raw XML format 
because you run the risk of messing up the document format or character 
escaping.  Wait until the document has been interpreted.  The longer you 
can keep the document in pure Unicode format before having to convert it 
to the much more limited character set of EBCDIC, the better.

On 2/24/2021 2:09 PM, Carel wrote:
> Runnin on V7.1
>
> We receive from a SAP environment xml documents which are stored as a 
> CLOB in a PF on our system.
>
> To process those xml documents we extract those documetns from that 
> file, store it on the IFS and then read the IFS file in with XML-INTO.
>
> Some of those xml documents crash on the XML-INTO opcode. It appears 
> those xml documents contain non-printable charaters (less than x'40')
>
> So, we have to remove those non-printable charaters.
>
> I looked at QSH -tr command, but could not gget it to work.
>
> Another option is using SQL when retrieving the CLOB from the PF 
> before writing to the IFS.
> Itried the following syntax:
>
> exec sql
> select REPLACE(CLOB_in_PF, x'0102 ... 3E3F', '') into :SQLCLOB_field 
> from Our_PF ;  (thus all hex values with the exception of NULL).
>
> This doesnot work.
>
> Question:
> How can we remove those non-printable characters from an xml document 
> stored in our PF?
>
> TIA
>
> Kind regards,
> Carel Teijgeler