How to handle special character in XML document

RE: How to handle special character in XML document

anushrid0001 — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 13:49:18 GMT

Thanks Stefan. I would go with your previous solution

RE: How to handle special character in XML document

Stefan Helzle — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 08:49:30 GMT

There is no ready made function available. You know the function toXml()? It has some quirks, but would take care of all you escape needs.

RE: How to handle special character in XML document

anushrid0001 — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 07:49:10 GMT

Thanks Stefan for the solution. However, I would like to know if we can encode special characters in Appian in the similar manner which can be done in other programming language with functions like encode()

RE: How to handle special character in XML document

Stefan Helzle — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 07:31:20 GMT

This code replaces all XML special characters in a given XML text.

http://xml.silmaril.ie/specials.html

" to  &quot;
' to  &apos;
< to  &lt;
> to  &gt;
& to  &amp;

reduce(
  substitute(_,_,_),
  ri!xml,
  merge(
    {"&", "<", ">", """", "'"},
    {"&", "<", ">", """, "'"} /* Change this to the escape characters listed above.*/
  )
)

RE: How to handle special character in XML document

anushrid0001 — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 06:39:27 GMT

Thansk Joe for the solution. regexreplaceall() function is a plugin function and also it checks for a specific pattern. Hence, not sure if that will work.

RE: How to handle special character in XML document

anushrid0001 — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 06:37:46 GMT

Thanks for the solution Mike. I have probably done that only. PFB my approach:

Rule "ia_findAndReplaceCharacter" Code is as below:

if(
find(
ri!search_text,
ri!input
) = 0,
ri!input,
substitute(
ri!input,
ri!search_text,
ri!replace_text
)
)

Rule "ia_findAndReplaceAllCharacters" Code is as below:

a!localVariables(
local!lessThanChar: rule!ia_findAndReplaceCharacter(
input: ri!input,
search_text: "<",
replace_text: "|"
),
local!greaterThanChar: rule!ia_findAndReplaceCharacter(
input: local!lessThanChar,
search_text: ">",
replace_text: "|"
),
local!apostropheChar: rule!ia_findAndReplaceCharacter(
input: local!greaterThanChar,
search_text: "'",
replace_text: "|"
),
local!backspaceChar: rule!ia_findAndReplaceCharacter(
input: local!apostropheChar,
search_text: "\b",
replace_text: "\B"
),
local!ampersandChar: rule!ia_findAndReplaceCharacter(
input: local!backspaceChar,
search_text: "&",
replace_text: "and"
),
local!finalOutput: local!ampersandChar,
local!finalOutput
)

Here, we have used rule "ia_findAndReplaceCharacter" for each character.

Is there a way or any function which can find and replace any such special character instead of the above approach.

RE: How to handle special character in XML document

Mike Schmitt — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 15:40:49 GMT

You just need a single rule where you can pass in a string and it passes out the "sanitized" version. I'm unclear whether that's what you already have, but this is about as good as you're going to get in Appian.

RE: How to handle special character in XML document

anushrid0001 — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 14:10:43 GMT

Thanks for the response. We have created a common rule to find the character and replace it with the required character individually. Hence, the same rule will check the characters individually. However, is there a way to check and all special characters at once and replace with the respective required characters.

RE: How to handle special character in XML document

Joe — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 13:35:58 GMT

Not sure if this helps..If we encounter odd/special characters from copy/paste text, executing a Regexreplaceall() function to strip illegal or unwanted characters can be useful.

RE: How to handle special character in XML document

juergeng393 — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 13:34:17 GMT

Hi,
you can escape the characters

" to  &quot;
' to  &apos;
< to  &lt;
> to  &gt;
& to  &amp;

or you can wrap attribute values in double quotes ("), e.g.

<MyTag attr="If a&lt;b &amp; b&lt;c then a&lt;c, it's obvious"/> will resolve into
If a<b & b<c then a<c, it's obvious as it can be found easy with google.