XML Parser Returning unexpected token error and null pointer exception

Question

So I think I was questioning the wrong way in previous threads. I better put it like this. I'm trying to parse the XML data:

<playlist>
<title>![CDATA[New Playlist]]</title>
<items>
<item>
<title>HAMD(LA ILAHA ILLALLAH)</title>
<description>Recited By :Alhaaj Muhammad Owais Raza Qadri -- Written By: Mufti-e-Azam Hind Molana Mustafa Raza Khan Noori</description>
<image>http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/~kanz/video/Images/9.jpg</image>
<startFromThis>true</startFromThis>
<duration>510</duration>
<source>http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/~kanz/video/flv/9.flv</source>
<sourceAlt>http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/~kanz/video/mp4/9.mp4</sourceAlt>
<sourceType>direct</sourceType>
</item>
</items>
</playlist>

In my Activity, what I did was this but the logcat gives null pointer exception. Here's my Activity and below it the logcat error.

static final String URL = "http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/~kanz/video/XML/9.xml";

// XML node keyse.
static final String KEY_SONG = "item"; // parent node
static final String KEY_TITLE = "title";
static final String KEY_ARTIST = "description";
static final String KEY_THUMB_URL = "image";
static final String KEY_DURATION = "duration";

NodeList nl = doc.getElementsByTagName(KEY_SONG);

// looping through all song nodes <song>
for (int i = 0; i < nl.getLength(); i++) {
    // creating new HashMap
    HashMap<String, String> map = new HashMap <String, String>();
    Element e = (Element) nl.item(i);
    // adding each child node to HashMap key => value
    map.put(KEY_TITLE, parser.getValue(e, KEY_TITLE));
    map.put(KEY_ARTIST, parser.getValue(e, KEY_ARTIST));
    map.put(KEY_THUMB_URL, parser.getValue(e, KEY_THUMB_URL));
    map.put(KEY_DURATION, parser.getValue(e, KEY_DURATION));

    // adding HashList to ArrayList
    songsList.add(map);
}

Logcat gives Unexpected Token error and returns null which causes null pointer exception.

03-28 14:31:34.059: E/Error:(895): Unexpected token (position:TEXT ï»¿@1:4 in java.io.StringReader@40d220e0) 
03-28 14:31:34.080: I/System.out(895): null
03-28 14:42:59.560: D/AndroidRuntime(978): Shutting down VM
03-28 14:42:59.560: W/dalvikvm(978): threadid=1: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x40a71930)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.example.razatubevidurl/com.example.razatubevidurl.CustomizedListView}: java.lang.NullPointerException
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2180)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2230)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at android.app.ActivityThread.access$600(ActivityThread.java:141)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1234)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5041)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:793)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:560)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978):  at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
03-28 14:42:59.639: E/AndroidRuntime(978): Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException

Please tell me what I'm doing wrong. I thought my previous question was vague and in this one, I tried my best to make the question clear and understandable.

where you are fetching xml content?

Simon Dorociak
– Simon Dorociak

2013-03-28 15:14:43 +00:00
Commented Mar 28, 2013 at 15:14 — Simon Dorociak
– Simon Dorociak, Commented Mar 28, 2013 at 15:14
@Sajmon From the URL initialized to the variable URL.

Abdus Sami Khan
– Abdus Sami Khan

2013-03-28 19:07:12 +00:00
Commented Mar 28, 2013 at 19:07 — Abdus Sami Khan
– Abdus Sami Khan, Commented Mar 28, 2013 at 19:07

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 10:32:04Z

1

I guess it's something about encoding. Maybe your parser doesn't like the exclamation mark (!). Can you make sure that you use the XML file with the correct encoding? (UTF-8)

Otherwise, you have this problem: KXmlParser throws "Unexpected token" exception at the start of RSS pasing.

I googled around and it looks like the easiest fix is here. You can try adding this method. (From the tutorial you use, put this in the ImageLoader class.)

import java.io.PushbackInputStream;
private InputStream checkForUtf8BOMAndDiscardIfAny(InputStream inputStream) throws IOException {
PushbackInputStream pushbackInputStream = new PushbackInputStream(new BufferedInputStream(inputStream), 3);
byte[] bom = new byte[3];
if (pushbackInputStream.read(bom) != -1) {
    if (!(bom[0] == (byte) 0xEF && bom[1] == (byte) 0xBB && bom[2] == (byte) 0xBF)) {
        pushbackInputStream.unread(bom);
    }
}
return pushbackInputStream; }

Then you can do

InputStream is=conn.getInputStream();
is = checkForUtf8BOMAndDiscardIfAny(is);

I don't have a chance to test the method but it should do it. Also, please see Byte order mark screws up file reading in Java.

edited May 23, 2017 at 10:32

CommunityBot

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answered Mar 28, 2013 at 16:11

pt2121

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7 Comments

Abdus Sami Khan Over a year ago

does the link you sent in the answer parse XML from server? Because mine is stored on the Server.

pt2121 Over a year ago

Yes, it's sent from a server. You can try creating a new local xml file with the same content and parse it.

Abdus Sami Khan Over a year ago

@EnterLevelDev I think the problem you guessed right. But the solution you sent uses PullParser while I'm using XMLParser. Can you help me solve it with XMLParser?

pt2121 Over a year ago

@AbdusSamiKhan I'd love to but I don't have your full code that I can play with. Any of these helps you stackoverflow.com/questions/1835430/…

Abdus Sami Khan Over a year ago

check this link, it's my previous question and it has all the code. stackoverflow.com/questions/15656570/…

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