Spot the difference!

Question

Hello

I need a quick help for a tricky problem that is literally driving me crazy.

String example = "<digitalObject>" +
                 "<title>title</title>" +
                 "<creator>Name</creator>" +
                 "<location>link</location>"+
                 "<relatedAsset>related realife object</relatedAsset>" +
                 "<note><src lang =\"en\">value</src></note>" +
                 "<archivalDate>date</archivalDate>"+
                 "<mimeFormat>mime type</mimeFormat>"+
                 "<digitalObjectOwner>owner</digitalObjectOwner>"+
                 "</digitalObject>";

String example4="<digitalObject>" + 
                "<title>title</title>"+
                "<creator>name</creator>"+ 
                "<location>link</location>"+
                "<relatedAsset>related realife object</relatedAsset>" + 
                "<note><src lang=\"en\">value</src></note>" + 
                "<archivialDate>date</archivialDate>"+
                "<mimeFormat>mime type</mimeFormat>" + 
                "<digitalObjectOwner>owner</digitalObjectOwner>" + 
                "</digitalObject>";

The following code to get a w3c.dom.Document object

DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder builder;
Document doc=null;
try {
builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();

InputSource is = new InputSource();
is.setCharacterStream(new StringReader(example4));
doc = builder.parse(is);
    } catch (SAXException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (ParserConfigurationException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    return doc;
}

The first string (example) is parsed correctly, the second one (example2) returns null.

Any idea why? I can't really see any difference between the 2!!

Thanks in advance I'm sure it's something so dumb I will feel ashamed...

EDIT: actually with the same content in the string, still 2 different outcome... I'll try to diff them...

Answer 1

You're missing a </src> in the note tag in the second one.

Answer 2

Let the computer do the work: http://commons.apache.org/lang/api-2.5/org/apache/commons/lang/StringUtils.html#difference(java.lang.String, java.lang.String)

If you expect the structure to be the same, but different contents, you should only see the content changes in the output.

Answer 3

Might not help this time, but I usually paste XML into an *.xml file in Eclipse, then auto-format the file (ctrl-shift-f), which makes things like this much, much easier to eyeball.

Answer 4

Have you checked for invisible characters? I have found in the past that there are invisible characters in an xml that are different from what I am expecting to have sent.

Answer 5

I knew I would be ashamed.

Spelling error, archivalDate in one and archiv*i*alDate in the other.

Plese bury me now...

Answer 6

Hey! you are saying the second one (example2) are you sure you are parsing example4? and not something called example2 which could be null?

I tested your code, and I did not get any exception. If otherwise, I am pretty sure you are dealing with some node, that does not exist in second xml - example4 - such as archivalDate