Unable to parse value containing special character? Using sax parser

java, parsing, sax

Solution

There are some characters in XML that must not appear in their literal form in an XML document, except when used as markup delimiters or within a comment, a processing instruction, or a CDATA section. List of characters and their corresponding entity or the numeric reference to replace :

Original Character    XML entity replacement      XML numeric replacement

      "                     "                       "   
      <                     &lt;                         &#60;   
      >                     &gt;                         &#62;
      &                     &amp;                        &#38;
      '                     &apos;                       &#39;

you must replace above character in XML before you parse it.

You may use CDATA Section for text that is not markup constitutes the character data of the document

Problem

I am new to parsing field. I'm trying to write a parser code but unable to get the value with respect to a particular tag that value contains `ampersand(&)`. Please help me to get the solution. My `xml` file looks like ``` <system> <u_id>10145</u_id> <serial_no>1800015</serial_no> <branch_name>B & P Infotech Ltd.</branch_name> </system> ``` and I have tried with this java code, but it's not giving me proper output. main class ``` package com.satya.xmltest; import javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser; import javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory; public class SaxTest { public static void main(String[] args) { SAXParserFactory parserFactory = SAXParserFactory.newInstance(); SaxtestHandler handler=new SaxtestHandler(); try { SAXParser parser = parserFactory.newSAXParser(); parser.parse("C:\\Users\\abc\\Desktop\\test.xml", handler); } catch (Exception e) { } SystemTo systemTo=handler.systemTo; System.out.println("Uid :"+systemTo.getUid()); System.out.println("serial number :"+systemTo.getSerialNumber()); System.out.println("name :"+systemTo.getName()); } } ``` Handler class In this class the parsing is done and setting the data values to data container class. ``` package com.satya.xmltest; import org.xml.sax.Attributes; import org.xml.sax.SAXException; import org.xml.sax.helpers.DefaultHandler; public class SaxtestHandler extends DefaultHandler { String content = ""; SystemTo systemTo=new SystemTo(); @Override public void startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName, Attributes attributes) throws SAXException { switch (qName) { case "system": System.out.println("inside company"); break; } } @Override public void endElement(String uri, String localName, String qName) throws SAXException { switch (qName) { case "u_id": systemTo.setUid(content); break; case "serial_no": systemTo.setSerialNumber(content); break; case "branch_name": systemTo.setName(content); break; } } @Override public void characters(char[] ch, int start, int length) throws SAXException { content = String.copyValueOf(ch, start, length).trim(); } } ``` Data container class ``` package com.satya.xmltest; public class SystemTo { private String uid; private String serialNumber; private String name; public String getUid() { return uid; } public void setUid(String uid) { this.uid = uid; } public String getSerialNumber() { return serialNumber; } public void setSerialNumber(String serialNumber) { this.serialNumber = serialNumber; } public String getName() { return name; } public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; } } ``` My output is: ``` Uid: 10145 serial number: 1800015 name: null ``` But I need: ``` Uid: 10145 serial number: 1800015 name: B & P Infotech Ltd. ``` Thanks in advance.

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