Re: [xml-dev] Error and Fatal Error

[Chris Burdess <dog@bluezoo.org>]

Stephen D Green wrote:

> By the way, I don't know why the tools used don't do the escaping
> but might be that they weren't expecting the input data to end up
> in XML (which would be ironic since they are based on Ajax).
>  
> I think the tools used are simply (and typically for .NET) an AJAX
> grid (probably a Telerik RadGrid) passing data to a .NET dataset
> on the server side. The XML might therefore be to some extent
> determined by a combination of the user's input (illegal characters
> perhaps included, like '&' and '<' though it is mainly '&' causing
> problems) and the AJAX/mainstream tools/controls. Then the
> XML is sent to the parser. We could try first parsing it as text to
> catch the illegal characters but this way will be XML-ignorant
> and we prefer to use a tool which 'understands' XML so we can
> concentrate the coding efforts on the element content and abstract
> away the angle brackets. It really should all 'just'work'.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "AJAX/mainstream tools/controls" here, but if it is data intended as markup as opposed to text, then it is up to you to parse it and correctly separate it from the textual content. You will then generate correctly formed XML from the result. It's no more reasonable to just throw this mishmash directly at an XML processor and expect it all to "just work" than it would be to throw an MPEG4 file into it and expect the processor to come out with all the subtitles arranged by scene.