4 replies to this topic

[shr]

I have an HTML file from which I extract useful info and save it as XML in a string. This XML data within the string contains a few urls enclosed in quotes. urls with special characters can make the whole XML file invalid. How to rectify this?

I've used htmlspecialchars already but it also converts the valid characters such as '<' in '<outline' into '&lt;' which I do not want it to do. I simply want the urls/titles/names etc to be checked whether they are valid; or if they are not, they must be made valid. I've considered passing each url through htmlspecialchars but it slows down process a lot.

A part of my xml string looks as follows:

<outline title="inspiration" text="inspiration">

<outline text="Paul Graham" title="Paul Graham" type="rss" xmlUrl="http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/feeds/pgessays.rss" htmlUrl="http://www.paulgraham.com/index.html"/>

<outline text="Flickr: Shreeda Kumar&#39;s Photostream" title="Flickr: Shreeda Kumar&#39;s Photostream" type="rss" xmlUrl="http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=47780284@N06&amp;lang=en-us&amp;format=rss_200" htmlUrl="http://www.flickr.com/photos/shreeda-kumar/"/>

<outline text="Lea Verou | Life at the bleeding edge (of web standards)" title="Lea Verou | Life at the bleeding edge (of web standards)" type="rss" xmlUrl="http://lea.verou.me/feed/" htmlUrl="http://lea.verou.me/"/>

</outline>

[Orjan]

How do you create your XML? Do you use a XML DOM object or do you do it "manually"? PHP has some nice features in both SimpleXML (http://se.php.net/ma...k.simplexml.php) and the DOM (http://se.php.net/ma...en/book.dom.php) extention, which I guess could simplify a lot for you?

[shr]

How do you create your XML? Do you use a XML DOM object or do you do it "manually"? PHP has some nice features in both SimpleXML (http://se.php.net/ma...k.simplexml.php) and the DOM (http://se.php.net/ma...en/book.dom.php) extention, which I guess could simplify a lot for you?

I'm doing it "manually". I had come across those pages in the past but it didn't help then because my PHP knowledge is.... inferior. If you could kindly clarify my doubts, I'll go in that way.

I have two simple questions:
1) Would using simplexml/dom extension handle dangerous urls?
2) If yes, among simplexml and dom extension which do you recommend?

In case you have the time to share some tips or pointers on this, I would be grateful.

[Orjan]

As I understand, they would only do proper XML files. I'm most used to SimpleXML and I like it very much.

[shr]

As I understand, they would only do proper XML files. I'm most used to SimpleXML and I like it very much.

Okay. Thanks for your time, Orjan. I'll look into both of them and see if I can manage to solve the problem.