[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

RE: Parsing Input Data for well-formedness

Subject: RE: Parsing Input Data for well-formedness
From: "McKeever, Marty" <marty.mckeever@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 16:24:46 -0400
need formedness
I've two possible scenarios to worry about:
1. data coming from a database:
<p><%= bean.getCompanyName() %></p>
  or
<input type="text" value="<%=bean.getLoanType()%>" />

2. form data input by the user
<p><%= request.getParameter("Comments") %></p>

so what i'm hoping for is some kind of XMLSafe(String) method that will
guarantee that the output is well formed -- but wont add anything it doesnt
need to.
String Comments = "That's all, Over & Out";
XMLSafe(Comments) -> "That&apos;s all, Over &amp; Out"

You never know what a user mught type into a textarea for comments.  I want
to guarantee that it can be displayed upon receipt.  I guess i'll have to
write (yet another) wheel from scratch...



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wendell Piez [mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 2:41 PM
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re:  Parsing Input Data for well-formedness
> 
> 
> Marty,
> 
> The only characters you need to worry about are '&' and '<'. XML is 
> deliberately put together this way.
> 
> Why are double escapings a problem? you just have to find, 
> and escape, any 
> '&' or '<' that is not a markup delimiter.
> 
> How bad the problem is depends on what's coming in. If it's 
> well-formed XML 
> (which you've said it isn't, I know),  all '&' and '<' are markup 
> delimiters except those in CDATA marked sections. If it's 
> plain text, none 
> of them will be markup delimiters since there's no markup. If it's 
> something else, things get trickier. HTML would be such a format, or 
> non-well-formed pseudo-XML fragments. In this case, you need 
> to know not 
> only what you want from these characters (that's pretty easy: 
> &amp; or 
> &lt;), but also what you want to happen to your markup (and 
> how you tell 
> it's markup).
> 
> Which of these do you have?
> 
> Cheers,
> Wendell
> 
> At 01:45 PM 10/9/01, you wrote:
> >When building an XML file from external data, we need to 
> validate that each
> >input string is well-formed.  The specific situation is a 
> Loan Type field
> >which returns "A&D".  Before we populate our XML file, we 
> need to convert
> >this to "A&amp;D".  Otherwise the XSLT will complain and not 
> render the
> >final page.
> >
> >Before we build a utility class for checking/correcting 
> these (all?!?) input
> >strings, i have to ask the obvious -- has anyone already 
> created something
> >like this?  Certainly there are many other characters we will need to
> >consider, and we'll have to watch out for double-escaping things
> >(A&amp;amp;D).
> >
> >Must i reinvent this wheel?
> 
> 
> ======================================================================
> Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
> 17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
> Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
> Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>    Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML
> ======================================================================
> 
> 
>  XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
> 

 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list


Current Thread

PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!

Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced!

Buy Stylus Studio Now

Download The World's Best XML IDE!

Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today!

Don't miss another message! Subscribe to this list today.
Email
First Name
Last Name
Company
Subscribe in XML format
RSS 2.0
Atom 0.3
Site Map | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Trademarks
Free Stylus Studio XML Training:
W3C Member
Stylus Studio® and DataDirect XQuery ™are products from DataDirect Technologies, is a registered trademark of Progress Software Corporation, in the U.S. and other countries. © 2004-2013 All Rights Reserved.