Illegal characters in path error while parsing XML in C#

Question

I'm getting an "Illegal characters in path error" while using XMLTextReader method. Basically, I'm sending a long URL to tr.im, and tr.im sends the response as an XML stream, which I'm trying to parse but I get the above mentioned error. Can you guys guide me as to why I'm getting this error and where I'm going wrong? Here's the code:

WebRequest wrURL;
Stream objStream;
string strURL;
wrURL = WebRequest.Create("http://api.tr.im/api/trim_url.xml?url=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(txtURL.Text));
objStream = wrURL.GetResponse().GetResponseStream();
StreamReader objSReader = new StreamReader(objStream);
strURL = objSReader.ReadToEnd().ToString();
XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(strURL); //getting the error at this point

I'm using Visual Studio 2008, Express Edition

score 76 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 03 '09 at 17:10

76

The reason why is you are using the constructor of XmlTextReader which takes a file path as the parameter but you're passing XML content instead.

Try the following code

XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(new StringReader(strURL));

answered Sep 03 '09 at 17:10

JaredPar

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Amazing. Thanks, your suggestion did not result in the error. – Sathyajith Bhat Sep 03 '09 at 17:13
1

Won't work unless you change the request to receive xml instead of the default pretty HTML setting. Add this parameter to your request: format=xml – whitneyland Jul 14 '11 at 18:35

score 16 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 03 '09 at 17:17

XmlTextReader constructor accepts a string that points to the URL where an XML file is stored. You are passing it the XML itself which of course is an invalid path. Try this instead:

using (var client = new WebClient())
{
    var xml = client.DownloadString("http://api.tr.im/api/trim_url.xml?url=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(txtURL.Text));
    using (var strReader = new StringReader(xml))
    using (var reader = XmlReader.Create(strReader))
    {

    }
}

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 03 '09 at 17:22

4

The XmlTextReader(string) constructor expects a file path, not the actual XML data.

You can create an XML reader directly from the stream. The recommended way to do this is using the XmlReader.Create method:

XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(objStream);

edited Sep 03 '09 at 17:22

JSBձոգչ

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answered Sep 03 '09 at 17:13

dtb

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getting Error: 'System.Xml.XmlReader.Create(string)' is a 'method' but is used like a 'type' with this. – Sathyajith Bhat Sep 03 '09 at 17:20
1

Edited to take out "new", which was the problem. – JSBձոգչ Sep 03 '09 at 17:23

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 10 '12 at 14:56

private void csv2_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        DataSet ds = new DataSet();
        DataSet dsSchema = new DataSet();
        dsSchema.ReadXml(@"C:\Working\Teradata\ssis\Sample.xml");
        StringReader sreader = new StringReader(ToXml(dsSchema));
         ds.ReadXmlSchema(sreader);
         ds.ReadXml(@"C:\Working\Teradata\ssis\Sample.xml");
        ExportTableToCsvString(ds.Tables["session"], true, @"C:\Working\Teradata\ssis\op\session.csv");
        BuildDynamicTable(ds, @"C:\Working\Teradata\ssis\op\");

    }
    public string ToXml(DataSet ds)
    {
        using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
        {
            using
                   (
                   TextWriter streamWriter = new StreamWriter(memoryStream))
            {
                var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(DataSet));
                xmlSerializer.Serialize(streamWriter, ds);
                return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(memoryStream.ToArray());
            }
        }
    }

what am I supposed to do with this? – Sathyajith Bhat Sep 10 '12 at 14:58 — Sathyajith Bhat, Sep 10 '12 at 14:58

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 03 '09 at 17:12

1

You should print or otherwise display strUrl. Once you can actually see the path that you're passing to the test reader, it should be obvious what the path error is.

Also, just looking at the code, it seems like the response itself might be XML, in which case you should pass objSReader directly to the XmlTextReader constructor.

answered Sep 03 '09 at 17:12

JSBձոգչ

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The response is XML data, as mentioned in the Question. Even with just passing objSReader I was getting the error. – Sathyajith Bhat Sep 03 '09 at 17:17

Illegal characters in path error while parsing XML in C#

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