MSXML loadXML won't load elements with namespace prefixes... Why?

Question

Hiho,

i guess, it's a pretty stupid question, but i had to switch to C/C++ recently and haven't done this in years. And right now I'm stuck on the following:

Given XML Element as a simple String:

<myns:factor>1000</myns:factor>

I have to parse the string, add the resulting Element to a surrounding MSXML2 DOM object within the same Namespace.

Right now i try it this way:

  HRESULT hr;

  MSXML2::IXMLDOMDocument2Ptr l_xmlFrame;
  MSXML2::IXMLDOMElementPtr l_xmlFrameDoc;

  hr = l_xmlFrame.CreateInstance(__uuidof(MSXML2::DOMDocument));

  if( !FAILED(hr) ) {

    l_xmlFrame->async = VARIANT_FALSE;
    l_xmlFrame->validateOnParse = VARIANT_TRUE;

    // p_strUnit holds the xml as a String
    l_xmlFrame->loadXML(p_strUnit);

  }

The loadXML(...) call just fails , but:

if i remove the namespace declarations and the element looks like this:

<factor>1000</factor>

the call works perfectly!

I really don't understand, why the loadXML function wont parse the string, when the Namespace declarations are set.

Any help appreciated!!!!! :)

Thanks!

I know for a fact that this does work with MSXML 6.0 (and probably earlier versions too). Could you gives a full XML document? — Jörgen Sigvardsson
– Jörgen Sigvardsson, Commented Sep 29, 2011 at 16:14
Could you please detail how you set the namespaces? Maybe the error is in there and it was rather complicated to parse namespaced XML even with MSXML6 as I recall. — aquaherd
– aquaherd, Commented Sep 29, 2011 at 19:56
@all: sry, real life intervened. I got a correct answer which actually concerned the setting of the namespaces. X-) ... Thanks anyway! — Gruber
– Gruber, Commented Sep 30, 2011 at 5:49

LarsH · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-29 16:13:36Z

3

The Problem

The string

<myns:factor>1000</myns:factor>

is not well-formed XML (with regard to namespaces). That's why XML parsers generally won't load it.

It's not well-formed because it uses the namespace prefix "myns", which has not been declared.

The Solution

If you changed the XML to something like this, it would parse fine:

<myns:factor xmlns:myns="mynamespaceURI">1000</myns:factor>

The namespace declaration (xmlns:myns="mynamespaceURI") can go on the element where the namespace prefix is used, or any ancestor thereof.

If you can't change the input XML, I would then ask the supplier of the XML, "Why are you giving me broken XML?"

answered Sep 29, 2011 at 16:13

LarsH

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