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Re: Tranforming XML document in tomcat...

2004-07-13 03:01:49
On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 10:30, Arulraj wrote:
Hello,
  I am tranforming XML document to someother text file
using Xalan in Tomcat 5.0.25 server.

I got the following error;
HTTP Status 500 - 
[...]
root cause 

javax.xml.transform.TransformerException: Content is
not allowed in prolog.

It sounds as if you have stray characters in the prolog to your document
instance (the bit at the top, before the root element start-tag). I find
the easiest way to trace this kind of error is to run an external 
stand-alone parser/validator over the document (eg rxp, nsgmls, etc) to 
check well-formedness or validity, because they will give you explicit 
line numbers and error messages. 

Java applications are notorious for giving you a megabyte of trace 
showing where *Java* spat blood, and nothing at all about where in the 
document the error was detected. Java people do themselves a great 
disservice by assuming that it is their Java code that has failed, 
when oftentimes it is the user's document/schema/dtd/stylesheet 
that is at fault.

///Peter