Re: Binary characters in XML

"Michael Leung" <mmhleung@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:20030629043817.55987.qmail@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to transform an XML document:
>
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="bin.xsl"?>
> <doc>
> <binary>
> &#x01;&#x02;&#x03;&#x04;&#x05;&#x06;&#x07;&#x08;&#x00;
> </binary>
> </doc>
>
> into a binary file with the contents being the value of
> the binary element in the above using the following
> XSLT stylesheet:
>
> <?xml version="1.0"?>
> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
> <xsl:output encoding="utf-8" />
>
> <xsl:template match="binary">
> <xsl:value-of select="."/>
> </xsl:template>
> </xsl:stylesheet>
>
> I tried using MSXSL from Microsoft and I got an "Invalid unicode
character" error.
>
> I also tried using Saxon and I got an "illegal XML character &#x1;" error.
> In IE, those characters are displayed as rectangles ().
>
> I wonder why the XSLT processors are complaining about these
> characters and I wonder if it is possible to carry out such a
> transformation.



It is not the XSLT processors that are complaining -- it is the XML parsers.

The XML 1.0 Spec defines strictly what characters are allowed in an XML
document:

"Character Range[2]    Char    ::=    #x9 | #xA | #xD | [#x20-#xD7FF] |
                                                       [#xE000-#xFFFD] |
[#x10000-#x10FFFF]  /* any Unicode character, excluding the

surrogate blocks, FFFE, and FFFF. */"

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#charsets



Therefore, the only characters with code less than #x20 are: #x9 | #xA | #xD

The cited xml parsers are implementing this spec and are correctly producing
error messages for any character not included in the above definition -- and
this is exactly the case you describe.



=====
Cheers,

Dimitre Novatchev.
http://fxsl.sourceforge.net/ -- the home of FXSL







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