CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xmlxslt
Sachin Mhetre
Sachin Mhetre

Reputation: 4543

Replace '&' with '&' in xml using xsl

I am writing an xsl for an xml, but I am stuck at & in my xml. It shows error like A semi colon character was expected. Error processing resource...

Now I want all & to be replaced with &. so that it won't show any error.

How can I achieve this?

Is there any alternative way of fixing this problem?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4737

Answers (2)

Petr Kozelka
Petr Kozelka

Reputation: 7980

Not possible with XSL - it operates on well-formed XML input only.

You need to use some search & replace functionality, for instance sed:

sed -i 's:&:&:' yourfile.xml

Or even better:

sed -i 's:&:&:g;s:amp;amp;:amp;:g;' yourfile.xml

which prevents you from replacing correct entity references.

Upvotes: 1

Tom Hillman
Tom Hillman

Reputation: 327

So here's an answer. Replace the $input parameter with your input file. Run against any valid XML file - NOT your input file as the input - the script will ignore it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
  xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
  xmlns:xd="http://www.oxygenxml.com/ns/doc/xsl"
  exclude-result-prefixes="xs xd"
  version="2.0">

  <xsl:param name="input" select="'file:/U:/input.txt'"/>

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <result>
    <xsl:analyze-string select="unparsed-text($input)" regex="&amp;">
      <xsl:matching-substring><xsl:text>&amp;</xsl:text></xsl:matching-substring>
      <xsl:non-matching-substring><xsl:copy-of select="."></xsl:copy-of></xsl:non-matching-substring>
    </xsl:analyze-string>
    </result>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

PS - I leave this as a proof of concept rather than a suggested solution to your underlying problem. XSLT is not the best tool for this job (just because all you have is a hammer doesn't mean you should treat everything like a nail).

Upvotes: 1

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