Why does the name of the object immediately follow the "&" character in the entity reference for XML?

Question

I have an XML file called /NewFile.xml in the D: directory. The XML file contains the following data:

<?xml version="1.0"?> <project> <logindetails id="1001"> <url>https:xxx</url> <username>xxx</username> <password>xxx</password> </logindetails > <kpi id="1001"> <id_r>reports</id_r> <id_e>extranet</id_e> <id_pr>ext-pr</id_pr> </kpi> <prkpi id="1001"> <id_1>ext-pr-backlog-age</id_1> <id_2>ext-timetoassign-prs</id_2> <id_3>ext-timetodeliver-prs</id_3> <id_4>ext-timetoresolve-prs</id_4> <id_5>ext-new-prs</id_5> </prkpi> <filtersection id="1001"> <visualizationId>Day,Week,Month,Quarter,Semester,Year,RD Tech Group,ICC,Center,Software Pack,Product,Project,Customer PRs,Severity,Priority</visualizationId> <projectId>dev/v4.3/r4/e12sqq,BATS,1523 Business IAD & Business CPE,[CoCo2M],VQM</projectId> </filtersection> </project> 

The following code that I run in eclipse is as follows:

 import java.io.File; import java.io.IOException; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.List; import java.util.Properties; import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder; import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory; import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException; import org.apache.log4j.Logger; import org.apache.log4j.xml.DOMConfigurator; import org.openqa.selenium.By; import org.openqa.selenium.JavascriptExecutor; import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver; import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement; import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver; import org.openqa.selenium.interactions.Actions; import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.Select; import org.w3c.dom.Document; import org.w3c.dom.Element; import org.w3c.dom.Node; import org.w3c.dom.NodeList; import org.xml.sax.SAXException; public class A { static Properties p= new Properties(); String url=p.getProperty("url"); private static Logger Log = Logger.getLogger(A.class.getName()); public static void main(String[] args) throws SAXException, IOException, ParserConfigurationException, InterruptedException { WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(); A a = new A(); Actions actions = new Actions(driver); DOMConfigurator.configure("src/log4j.xml"); String url = a.readXML("logindetails","url"); String username = a.readXML("logindetails","username"); String password = a.readXML("logindetails","password"); //use username for webdriver specific actions Log.info("Sign in to the OneReports website"); driver.manage().window().maximize(); driver.get(url); Thread.sleep(5000); Log.info("Enter Username"); driver.findElement(By.id("loginUsername")).sendKeys(username); Log.info("Enter Password"); driver.findElement(By.id("loginPassword")).sendKeys(password); //submit Log.info("Submitting login details"); waitforElement(driver,120 , "//*[@id='submit']"); driver.findElement(By.id("submit")).submit(); Thread.sleep(5000); Log.info("Clicking on Reports link"); String id_r = a.readXML("kpi","id_r"); WebElement menuHoverLink = driver.findElement(By.id(id_r)); actions.moveToElement(menuHoverLink).perform(); Thread.sleep(6000); String id_e = a.readXML("kpi","id_e"); WebElement menuHoverLink1 = driver.findElement(By.id(id_e)); actions.moveToElement(menuHoverLink1).perform(); Thread.sleep(6000); String id_pr = a.readXML("kpi","id_pr"); WebElement menuHoverLink2 = driver.findElement(By.id(id_pr)); actions.moveToElement(menuHoverLink2).perform(); Thread.sleep(6000); String id_1 = a.readXML("prkpi","id_1"); WebElement menuHoverLink3 = driver.findElement(By.id(id_1)); actions.moveToElement(menuHoverLink3).click().perform(); Thread.sleep(6000); } private static void waitforElement(WebDriver driver, int i, String string) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } public String readXML(String searchelement,String tag) throws SAXException, IOException, ParserConfigurationException{ String ele = null; File fXmlFile = new File("D://NewFile.xml"); DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance(); DocumentBuilder dBuilder = dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder(); Document doc = dBuilder.parse(fXmlFile); doc.getDocumentElement().normalize(); NodeList nList = doc.getElementsByTagName(searchelement); Node nNode = nList.item(0); if (nNode.getNodeType() == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) { Element eElement = (Element) nNode; ele=eElement.getElementsByTagName(tag).item(0).getTextContent(); } return ele; } } 

When I run this code, I get the following error in the console as follows:

 Fatal Error] NewFile.xml:27:57: The entity name must immediately follow the '&' in the entity reference. Exception in thread "main" org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; systemId: file:/D:/NewFile.xml; lineNumber: 27; columnNumber: 57; The entity name must immediately follow the '&' in the entity reference. at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DOMParser.parse(Unknown Source) at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(Unknown Source) at javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder.parse(Unknown Source) at A.readXML(A.java:94) at A.main(A.java:40) 

Please give me a solution on this issue.

Answer 1

You have unescaped & , like @chrylis, the message said .; -)

Change Business IAD & Business CPE to Business IAD & Business CPE Business IAD & Business CPE .

See also: What characters do I need to execute in XML documents?

Answer 2

You cannot use ampersand ( & ) directly in an XML file. Change this:

 1523 Business IAD & Business CPE 

:

 1523 Business IAD & Business CPE 

The reason for the somewhat confusing error message is that when the XML processor sees & , it expects that it will immediately be followed by the name of the object or “symbol reference”, for example & , < , ≛ , etc. Thus, he saw & in your name and did not realize that you had just used it incorrectly.