Illegal characters in path error while parsing XML in C#

Question

I'm getting an "Illegal characters in path error" while using XMLTextReader method. Basically, I'm sending a long URL to tr.im, and tr.im sends the response as an XML stream, which I'm trying to parse but I get the above mentioned error. Can you guys guide me as to why I'm getting this error and where I'm going wrong? Here's the code:

WebRequest wrURL;
Stream objStream;
string strURL;
wrURL = WebRequest.Create("http://api.tr.im/api/trim_url.xml?url=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(txtURL.Text));
objStream = wrURL.GetResponse().GetResponseStream();
StreamReader objSReader = new StreamReader(objStream);
strURL = objSReader.ReadToEnd().ToString();
XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(strURL); //getting the error at this point

I'm using Visual Studio 2008, Express Edition

JaredPar · Accepted Answer · 2009-09-03 17:10:11Z

78

The reason why is you are using the constructor of XmlTextReader which takes a file path as the parameter but you're passing XML content instead.

Try the following code

XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(new StringReader(strURL));

answered Sep 3, 2009 at 17:10

JaredPar

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2 Comments

Sathyajith Bhat Over a year ago

Amazing. Thanks, your suggestion did not result in the error.

Lee Whitney III Over a year ago

Won't work unless you change the request to receive xml instead of the default pretty HTML setting. Add this parameter to your request: format=xml

Darin Dimitrov · Accepted Answer · 2009-09-03 17:17:12Z

16

XmlTextReader constructor accepts a string that points to the URL where an XML file is stored. You are passing it the XML itself which of course is an invalid path. Try this instead:

using (var client = new WebClient())
{
    var xml = client.DownloadString("http://api.tr.im/api/trim_url.xml?url=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(txtURL.Text));
    using (var strReader = new StringReader(xml))
    using (var reader = XmlReader.Create(strReader))
    {

    }
}

answered Sep 3, 2009 at 17:17

Darin Dimitrov

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Comments

JSBձոգչ · Accepted Answer · 2009-09-03 17:22:56Z

5

The XmlTextReader(string) constructor expects a file path, not the actual XML data.

You can create an XML reader directly from the stream. The recommended way to do this is using the XmlReader.Create method:

XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(objStream);

edited Sep 3, 2009 at 17:22

JSBձոգչ

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answered Sep 3, 2009 at 17:13

dtb

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2 Comments

Sathyajith Bhat Over a year ago

getting Error: 'System.Xml.XmlReader.Create(string)' is a 'method' but is used like a 'type' with this.

JSBձոգչ Over a year ago

Edited to take out "new", which was the problem.

JSBձոգչ · Accepted Answer · 2009-09-03 17:12:20Z

1

You should print or otherwise display strUrl. Once you can actually see the path that you're passing to the test reader, it should be obvious what the path error is.

Also, just looking at the code, it seems like the response itself might be XML, in which case you should pass objSReader directly to the XmlTextReader constructor.

answered Sep 3, 2009 at 17:12

JSBձոգչ

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1 Comment

Sathyajith Bhat Over a year ago

The response is XML data, as mentioned in the Question. Even with just passing objSReader I was getting the error.

JAY · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-10 14:56:35Z

1

private void csv2_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        DataSet ds = new DataSet();
        DataSet dsSchema = new DataSet();
        dsSchema.ReadXml(@"C:\Working\Teradata\ssis\Sample.xml");
        StringReader sreader = new StringReader(ToXml(dsSchema));
         ds.ReadXmlSchema(sreader);
         ds.ReadXml(@"C:\Working\Teradata\ssis\Sample.xml");
        ExportTableToCsvString(ds.Tables["session"], true, @"C:\Working\Teradata\ssis\op\session.csv");
        BuildDynamicTable(ds, @"C:\Working\Teradata\ssis\op\");

    }
    public string ToXml(DataSet ds)
    {
        using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
        {
            using
                   (
                   TextWriter streamWriter = new StreamWriter(memoryStream))
            {
                var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(DataSet));
                xmlSerializer.Serialize(streamWriter, ds);
                return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(memoryStream.ToArray());
            }
        }
    }

answered Sep 10, 2012 at 14:56

JAY

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1 Comment

Sathyajith Bhat Over a year ago

what am I supposed to do with this?

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