Problem parsing String to DOM in Java

Question

Consider that I have a standard DOMParser, written along the lines of:

    DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
    DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder(); factory.newDocumentBuilder().newDocument();
    this.document = builder.parse(new InputSource(new StringReader(xmlString)));

Then when I feed this, it works:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?><rsp stat="ok">
<photos page="1" pages="385628" perpage="10" total="3856272">
    <photo farm="7" id="5943736412" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="35783591@N08" secret="7c3ee3a0ee" server="6144" title="SOOC"/>
    <photo farm="7" id="5943736298" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="51692758@N06" secret="3a6d0657e0" server="6130" title="Large Express Orange Cami with Lace Trim $1"/>
    <photo farm="7" id="5943180023" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="67953162@N00" secret="36177b9be7" server="6022" title="little fellow at the heart"/>
    <photo farm="7" id="5943741338" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="9121546@N05" secret="f5dcb26ba0" server="6025" title="Freeway Drive"/>
    <photo farm="7" id="5943182403" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="62760035@N06" secret="1a77e9ea6f" server="6131" title="Mk1_Orange"/>
    <photo farm="7" id="5943159235" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="63335898@N06" secret="cd80b51040" server="6027" title="D'CLOSET; GD1181 (97% Rayon 3% Spandex) Navy, Black, Dark Orange ~45.5 in. +55.5 in. $16.25 01-3."/>
    <photo farm="7" id="5943150801" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="49610142@N03" secret="d22b924c36" server="6124" title="orange_hat5"/>
    <photo farm="7" id="5943149751" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="93794898@N00" secret="45a4d3681f" server="6137" title="Southern White Faced (Scops) Owl (Ptilopsis granti)"/>
    <photo farm="7" id="5943147771" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="64331041@N07" secret="b79de60d1a" server="6148" title="Another shot of the orange #VW #Beetle everybody loved so much :)"/>
    <photo farm="7" id="5943169451" isfamily="0" isfriend="0" ispublic="1" owner="25656513@N06" secret="3137cccc19" server="6128" title="365:26 - False Coloured"/>
</photos>
</rsp>

But when I feed this, it doesn’t parse, and throws the exception shown below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<rsp stat="ok">
<photos page="1" pages="385871" perpage="10" total="3858702">
    <photo id="5943232363" owner="65158874@N02" secret="ed3a8c8859" server="6142" farm="7" title="Sunset" ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
    <photo id="5943241319" owner="65158874@N02" secret="3eeefe774d" server="6018" farm="7" title="Sunset" ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
    <photo id="5943783494" owner="65158874@N02" secret="40488c323f" server="6142" farm="7" title="Sunset" ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
    <photo id="5943788400" owner="65158874@N02" secret="a71e479368" server="6003" farm="7" title="Sunset Storm Clouds" ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
    <photo id="5943238975" owner="65158874@N02" secret="eebcee0087" server="6148" farm="7" title="Clouds of Fire" ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
    <photo id="5943240733" owner="65158874@N02" secret="13b8236166" server="6024" farm="7" title="Clouds of Fire" ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
    <photo id="5943233445" owner="65158874@N02" secret="9ab47a506e" server="6001" farm="7" title="Sunset Storm Clouds" ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
    <photo id="4866746451" owner="51206279@N07" secret="4527be5fcd" server="4121" farm="5" title="alive" ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
    <photo id="5943234465" owner="65158874@N02" secret="600d8af8ee" server="6141" farm="7" title="Sunset Storm Clouds" ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
    <photo id="5943243347" owner="65158874@N02" secret="de74666e23" server="6029" farm="7" title="Moon" ispublic="1" isfriend="0" isfamily="0" />
</photos>
</rsp>

The exception thrown is:

[Fatal Error] :-1:-1: Premature end of file.
Exception in thread "main" org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Premature end of file.
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DOMParser.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(Unknown Source)

Any ideas would be much appreciated!

The first I am loading from a file. Transforming to a string, lets call it ‘xmlString1’. Then attempting to re-parse. The second is obtained by making a RESTful call to an api. — Larry
– Larry, Commented Jul 16, 2011 at 18:12

brabster · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-16 19:19:34Z

1

I can parse both your examples fine with your code (modified to read the XML from a file that I copy/pasted your examples into, not a string).

My best guess is that there's chars in the string that are not copied over in the copy-paste you've done.

UPDATE - if you are accessing a resource over HTTP, there are things that can be going wrong. There's some anecdotal evidence that even the HTTP content-length header can cause the problem you're seeing, for example. I suggest you look carefully at the HTTP side of things, maybe even post up the code you're using to obtain the document, and the document URL if it's a public resource.

edited Jul 16, 2011 at 19:19

answered Jul 16, 2011 at 18:06

brabster

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1 Comment

home Over a year ago

+1. @Larry: What happens if you open the original XML files in a reader understanding XML (e.g. Chrome, Firefox). Maybe there are some control character in the original file?!

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