Dealing with < and > characters in XML data

[seeCoolGuy]

I've been using Access to import some data straight into a sql server
database by simply importing the xml file. However lately some of the
newer xml files will contain vaild data such as

"m³" within the tags so it reads like the following

<TblPartDesript ions_to_transla te>
<intpartid>79 </intpartid>
<strpartdescrip tion>Part Description Here</strpartdescript ion>
<strlongdescrip tion>some really long text here
m³/min.)</strlongdescript ion>
</TblPartDesripti ons_to_translat e>


The data inside the strlongdescript ion should just parse correctly but
it could just be a microsoft thing, since it does parse correctly in
other products such as "XML PAD" and Firefox for viewing the file.

any help is appreciated, perhaps a modified xsl file?

[Andy Dingley]

Re: Dealing with &lt; and &gt; characters in XML data


seeCoolGuy wrote:

I've been using Access to import some data straight into a sql server
database by simply importing the xml file.

I'm not sure what "simply importing the xml file." means.

Does Access expect to see XML here, and _treat_it_as_ XML ?
Or will it expect to see CDATA here, and will thus encode it so as to
be suitable for inclusion inside XML (as CDATA), i.e. it'll convert to
&lt;

it reads like the following
>
<TblPartDesript ions_to_transla te>
<intpartid>79 </intpartid>
<strpartdescrip tion>Part Description Here</strpartdescript ion>
<strlongdescrip tion>some really long text here
m³/min.)</strlongdescript ion>
</TblPartDesripti ons_to_translat e>

_Does_ it read like this? This is what you'd expect, and I'd expect
other tools to then process it corrrectly.

However I suspect that Access may have helpfully(sic) delivered you
this instead:
<strlongdescrip tion>some really long text here
m&lt;sup&gt;3&l t;/sup&gt;/min.)</strlongdescript ion>

any help is appreciated, perhaps a modified xsl file?

XSL is rarely any use for this sort of problem. What you need is a very
clear mental model of what's text (i.e. CDATA), what's XML, and to make
sure that exactly the right type and number of encodings is applied
when moving between each.