Forum Discussion

alex_panganiban's avatar
alex_panganiban
Contributor
5 years ago

XML Generator, Entity referenced, but not declared

I’m having trouble using the XML Generator with data that contains special symbols and characters. All the usual suspects (<, >, &, ", ', ) have been taken care of by using the HTML notations <, >, &...
xml
mbowen's avatar
mbowen
Employee
5 years ago

I still need to investigate this. For the Formatter, do you check the “Format as canonical XML” checkbox?

alex_panganiban's avatar
alex_panganiban
Contributor
5 years ago

Hi, no I am not checking “Format as canonical XML.” I do check “Strict XSD Output.”

  • mbowen's avatar
    mbowen
    Employee
    5 years ago

    Here are my results of testing entity reference escaping.

    XML Generator (Escape Special Characters: unchecked)
    Input: &#174;
    Output: Registered Sign (decimal code point: 174, utf-8 hex bytes: C2 AE)
...
XML Formatter: 
    Input: Registered Sign
    Output: Registered Sign

    Running pipeline with “escape” checked.

    XML Generator (Escape Special Characters: checked)
    Input: &#174;
    Output: &amp;#174; 
...
XML Formatter: 
    Input: &#174
    Output: &amp;#174

    As you know, if we try to use the ® reference, XML Generator will fail with “SAXParseException The entity ‘reg’ was referenced, but not declared”. However, if check “escape special chars”, I get this.

    XML Generator (Escape Special Characters: checked)
    Input: &reg;
    Output: &amp;reg; 
...
XML Formatter: 
    Input: &reg;
    Output: &amp;reg;

    Admittedly, the escaping and transformations are a bit tricky in spots. I assume you would like to see &reg; or &#174; output from the XML Formatter? I can attach my sample pipeline after updating wsdl endpoint if helpful. Where is it failing for you and what you would like to see.

    • alex_panganiban's avatar
      alex_panganiban
      Contributor
      5 years ago

      Hi Matthew

      Yes, your results matched what I’m experiencing too.

      Ideally, I would like to see &reg;, &#174, and &#xAE go into the XML Generator (with Escape Special Characters unchecked) and come out in the exact same format, the same way as &lt;, &gt;, &apos;, and &quot; do. The same goes for the XML Formatter…I want to see any input that has been pre-escaped come out in the same format as it went in. This would make the behavior of the snaps consistent for all escaped codes.

      As a retailer, our vendors pass to us product descriptions that are HTML formatted and friendly. I am attempting to place these product descriptions in XML messages so that they can be imported into our Salesforce hosted website and mobile app. Aside from <, >, ', ", and ®, I have around 17-20 additional escape codes that I need to use, however, the way the XML Generator and Formatters are working now, I am unable to do this.

      Can I request for a future release that these snaps be changed so that the behavior is consistent for all escape codes when the Escape Special Characters option is turned off, or how would I go about making a custom snap to behave this way? Without a change like this, I’m pretty much dead in the water.

      Thanks, Alex

      p.s. Answering your question, where is it failing for me?
      When I use &reg; as input to either the Generator or the Formatter, they both fail due to “reg” not being declared.
      When I use &#174; and &#xAE;, they go through the Generator snap successfully, however, as you’ve experienced, they come out of Generator snap as the registered sign. Downstream, when I am running this data through the XML Formatter (in preparation to do a file write), the Formatter fails because it does not like the registered sign.
      I cannot use the Escape Special Characters option because I have so many codes that I need to use and this option only accounts for the less than sign, the greater than sign, the apostrophe, and quotation marks. No other symbols or special characters are recognized by this option.

      • mbowen's avatar
        mbowen
        Employee
        5 years ago

        Sorry. Got caught up with another issue today. I will reply on Monday (6/7). Have a nice weekend.