RE: XMLSAX parser handling for embedded ampersand

Developers parsing xml should be aware of the pre-requisite to encode entity references like ampersand.
What I'm asking is for an explanation of the rather counter-intuitive handling of the event when the sax parser when encounters an ampersand..
It is not unreasonable to be sent a large xml file from a customer who may not have sufficient checks on populating xml values.

---Original Message-----
From: RPG400-L [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of thomas.raddatz@xxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, 13 May 2014 6:10 p.m.
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: XMLSAX parser handling for embedded ampersand


Peter,

It is not XML-SAX that fails parsing the xml document due to a bug, but the creator of the document who made the mistake. The ampersand is a xml special character that needs to be encoded as "&".

For example (taken from "ILE RPG Reference":

xmlDocument =
'<meeting>+
<attendee name="Jack" company="A&amp;B Electronics"/>+
<attendee company="City&#x2B; Waterworks" name="Jill"/>+
<attendee name="Bill" company="Ace Movers" extra="yes"/>+
</meeting>';

Is parsed and printed as:

Attendee Jack is from company A&B Electronics
Attendee Jill is from company City+ Waterworks

Feel free to refer to w3schools for details:

http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_syntax.asp

Regards,

Thomas.

rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx schrieb am 13.05.2014 01:32:39:

Von: Peter.Connell@xxxxxxxxxx
An: RPG400-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx,
Datum: 13.05.2014 01:33
Betreff: XMLSAX parser handling for embedded ampersand Gesendet von:
rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx

XMLSAX does not appear to allow you to handle data like "smith&brown"
( supplied by customer in a large file ) The parser raises a an
*XML_EXCEPTION event when the ampersand is

encountered.

Even if you code for *XML_EXCEPTION events to ignore them it appears
that once encountered all subsequent events are returned as

*XML_EXCEPTION.

Some IBM doco says an ampersand should generate *XML_UNKNOWN_REF but I
always get *XML_EXCEPTION Another IBM doco says a limitation of XMLSAX
is that it does not handle ampersand.

Anybody found this?

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