Is Scala/Java not respecting w3 "excess dtd traffic" specs?

Question

I'm new to Scala, so I may be off base on this, I want to know if the problem is my code. Given the Scala file httpparse, simplified to:

object Http {
   import java.io.InputStream;
   import java.net.URL;

   def request(urlString:String): (Boolean, InputStream) =
      try {
         val url = new URL(urlString)
         val body = url.openStream
         (true, body)
      }
      catch {
         case ex:Exception => (false, null)
      }
}

object HTTPParse extends Application {
   import scala.xml._;
   import java.net._;

   def fetchAndParseURL(URL:String) = {
      val (true, body) = Http request(URL)
      val xml = XML.load(body) // <-- Error happens here in .load() method
      "True"
   }
}

Which is run with (URL doesn't matter, this is a joke example):

scala> HTTPParse.fetchAndParseURL("http://stackoverflow.com")

The result invariably:

   java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 503 for URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd
    at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:1187)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLEntityManager.setupCurrentEntity(XMLEntityManager.java:973)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLEntityManager.startEntity(XMLEnti...

I've seen the Stack Overflow thread on this with respect to Java, as well as the W3C's System Team Blog entry about not trying to access this DTD via the web. I've also isolated the error to the XML.load() method, which is a Scala library method as far as I can tell.

My Question: How can I fix this? Is this something that is a by product of my code (cribbed from Raphael Ferreira's post), a by product of something Java specific that I need to address as in the previous thread, or something that is Scala specific? Where is this call happening, and is it a bug or a feature? ("Is it me? It's her, right?")

Answer 1

There are two problems with what you are trying to do:

• Scala's xml parser is trying to physically retrieve the DTD when it shouldn't. J-16 SDiZ seems to have some advice for this problem.
• The Stack overflow page you are trying to parse isn't XML. It's Html4 strict.

The second problem isn't really possible to fix in your scala code. Even once you get around the dtd problem, you'll find that the source just isn't valid XML (empty tags aren't closed properly, for example).

You have to either parse the page with something besides an XML parser, or investigate using a utility like tidy to convert the html to xml.

Answer 2

This is a scala problem. Native Java has an option to disable loading the DTD:

f.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/disallow-doctype-decl", true);

There are no equivalent in scala.

If you somewhat want to fix it yourself, check scala/xml/parsing/FactoryAdapter.scala and put the line in

278   def loadXML(source: InputSource): Node = {
279     // create parser
280     val parser: SAXParser = try {
281       val f = SAXParserFactory.newInstance()
282       f.setNamespaceAware(false)

<-- insert here

283       f.newSAXParser()
284     } catch {
285       case e: Exception =>
286         Console.err.println("error: Unable to instantiate parser")
287         throw e
288     }

Answer 3

My knowledge of Scala is pretty poor, but couldn't you use ConstructingParser instead?

  val xml = new java.io.File("xmlWithDtd.xml")
  val parser = scala.xml.parsing.ConstructingParser.fromFile(xml, true)
  val doc = parser.document()
  println(doc.docElem)

Answer 4

I've bumped into the SAME issue, and I haven't found an elegant solution (I'm thinking into posting the question to the Scala mailing list) Meanwhile, I found a workaround: implement your own SAXParserFactoryImpl so you can set the f.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/disallow-doctype-decl", true); property. The good thing is it doesn't require any code change to the Scala code base (I agree that it should be fixed, though). First I'm extending the default parser factory:

package mypackage;

public class MyXMLParserFactory extends SAXParserFactoryImpl {
      public MyXMLParserFactory() throws SAXNotRecognizedException, SAXNotSupportedException, ParserConfigurationException {
        super();
        super.setFeature("http://xml.org/sax/features/validation", false);
        super.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/disallow-doctype-decl", false); 
        super.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/nonvalidating/load-dtd-grammar", false); 
        super.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/nonvalidating/load-external-dtd", false); 
      } 
    }

Nothing special, I just want the chance to set the property.

(Note: that this is plain Java code, most probably you can write the same in Scala too)

And in your Scala code, you need to configure the JVM to use your new factory:

System.setProperty("javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory", "mypackage.MyXMLParserFactory");

Then you can call XML.load without validation

Answer 5

Without addressing, for now, the problem, what do you expect to happen if the function request return false below?

def fetchAndParseURL(URL:String) = {      
  val (true, body) = Http request(URL)

What will happen is that an exception will be thrown. You could rewrite it this way, though:

def fetchAndParseURL(URL:String) = (Http request(URL)) match {      
  case (true, body) =>      
    val xml = XML.load(body)
    "True"
  case _ => "False"
}

Now, to fix the XML parsing problem, we'll disable DTD loading in the parser, as suggested by others:

def fetchAndParseURL(URL:String) = (Http request(URL)) match {      
  case (true, body) =>
    val f = javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory.newInstance()
    f.setNamespaceAware(false)
    f.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/disallow-doctype-decl", true);
    val MyXML = XML.withSAXParser(f.newSAXParser())
    val xml = MyXML.load(body)
    "True"
  case _ => "False"
}

Now, I put that MyXML stuff inside fetchAndParseURL just to keep the structure of the example as unchanged as possible. For actual use, I'd separate it in a top-level object, and make "parser" into a def instead of val, to avoid problems with mutable parsers:

import scala.xml.Elem
import scala.xml.factory.XMLLoader
import javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser
object MyXML extends XMLLoader[Elem] {
  override def parser: SAXParser = {
    val f = javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory.newInstance()
    f.setNamespaceAware(false)
    f.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/disallow-doctype-decl", true);
    f.newSAXParser()
  }
}

Import the package it is defined in, and you are good to go.

Answer 6

It works. After some detective work, the details as best I can figure them:

Trying to parse a developmental RESTful interface, I build the parser and get the above (rather, a similar) error. I try various parameters to change the XML output, but get the same error. I try to connect to an XML document I quickly whip up (cribbed stupidly from the interface itself) and get the same error. Then I try to connect to anything, just for kicks, and get the same (again, likely only similar) error.

I started questioning whether it was an error with the sources or the program, so I started searching around, and it looks like an ongoing issue- with many Google and SO hits on the same topic. This, unfortunately, made me focus on the upstream (language) aspects of the error, rather than troubleshoot more downstream at the sources themselves.

Fast forward and the parser suddenly works on the original XML output. I confirmed that there was some additional work has been done server side (just a crazy coincidence?). I don't have either earlier XML but suspect that it is related to the document identifiers being changed.

Now, the parser works fine on the RESTful interface, as well any well formatted XML I can throw at it. It also fails on all XHTML DTD's I've tried (e.g. www.w3.org). This is contrary to what @SeanReilly expects, but seems to jive with what the W3 states.

I'm still new to Scala, so can't determine if I have a special, or typical case. Nor can I be assured that this problem won't re-occur for me in another form down the line. It does seem that pulling XHTML will continue to cause this error unless one uses a solution similar to those suggested by @GClaramunt $ @J-16 SDiZ have used. I'm not really qualified to know if this is a problem with the language, or my implementation of a solution (likely the later)

For the immediate timeframe, I suspect that the best solution would've been for me to ensure that it was possible to parse that XML source-- rather than see that other's have had the same error and assume there was a functional problem with the language.

Hope this helps others.

Answer 7

For scala 2.7.7 I managed to do this with scala.xml.parsing.XhtmlParser

Answer 8

Setting Xerces switches only works if you are using Xerces. An entity resolver works for any JAXP parser.

There are more generalized entity resolvers out there, but this implementation does the trick when all I'm trying to do is parse valid XHTML.

http://code.google.com/p/java-xhtml-cache-dtds-entityresolver/

Shows how trivial it is to cache the DTDs and forgo the network traffic.

In any case, this is how I fix it. I always forget. I always get the error. I always go fetch this entity resolver. Then I'm back in business.