RE: [syndication] syndic8.com OCS feed fails parse.

["Jeff Barr" <jeff@vertexdev.com>]

Kevin asks:

> Where are you getting your <description> data from?

I am getting it from the RSS.

> Somehow, someone is entering descriptions with external entities.  In
order to
> fix it you will have to either escape the entities or disallow them.

Part of S8's mission will be to "lint" all of these feeds. We are 
going to work with site owners to improve the quality of their data.

If you look at http://www.syndic8.com/polllist.php you can see
the overall state of things. Each row represents a single poll. Polls
take place 4 times per day. The latest poll checked 2195 feeds. 48 were
dead, and of those that responded, 224 returned XML that could not
be parsed. The little bar chart on the right will show the trend
over time. You can click on any of the numbers to get more detail,
with the finest level being a historic view of a particular site over 
time. For example:

	http://www.syndic8.com/feedinfo.php?FeedID=275&Section=poll

The CNET E-Business feed had a parse error the last time it was
polled. It usually responds in about 1.2 seconds, but one time it
took nearly 8 seconds.

Jeff;

-----Original Message-----
From: burton@relativity.yi.org [mailto:burton@relativity.yi.org] 
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 10:23 PM
To: syndication@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [syndication] syndic8.com OCS feed fails parse.


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"Jeff Barr" <jeff@vertexdev.com> writes:

> Hi,
> 
> Indeed there is a problem. Do I need to insert some kind of XML
declaration or
> PI at the top of the generated document? I'm not sure how to fix this,
but I
> will as soon as I know...

Where are you getting your <description> data from?

You should validate the data on input so that user's can't break your
XML.

If someone enters <blah> but doesn't complete it you will have problems.

Somehow, someone is entering descriptions with external entities.  In
order to
fix it you will have to either escape the entities or disallow them.

Basically anything like &amp; or &asdf; will break.

Kevin

- -- 
Kevin A. Burton ( burton@apache.org, burton@openprivacy.org,
burtonator@acm.org )
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