XmlException: Data at the root level is invalid

Question

I have a PHP client that has to query datasets from a service that uses .NET. So, I was trying to make a query by passing a POST field called 'query'. Inside this variable, I have a string version of XML document. What's happening now is that whenever I passed this 'query' to the server, it will throw an exception at me 'Data at the root level is invalid.' and point to the last line of my XML document.

Any tips?

Here's the XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Predicate>
  <ComparisonPredicate name="like" isEnabled="True" id="" DistinctIndividualQueries="False">
    <FacetOperand reference="TriggeredAlerts.Alert.Name"/>
    <Comparison operation="like"/>
    <ValueOperand type="System.String" value="Sample"/>
  </ComparisonPredicate>
</Predicate>

Here's the var_dump()

string(335) "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Predicate>
  <ComparisonPredicate name="like" isEnabled="True" id="" DistinctIndividualQueries="False">
    <FacetOperand reference="TriggeredAlerts.Alert.Name"/>
    <Comparison operation="like"/>
    <ValueOperand type="System.String" value="TestAlert"/>
  </ComparisonPredicate>
</Predicate>
"

Smells like a missing or invalid closing tag in the root element of the document to me... Can you post the XML document you are trying to parse? — DaveRandom, Jan 23 '12 at 12:36
I can't see anything wrong with the document, can you show a `var_dump()` of the variable that contains your XML? — DaveRandom, Jan 23 '12 at 12:54
@DaveRandom There you go. I'm posting this to the .NET web service. — Ye Myat Min, Jan 23 '12 at 12:57
Maybe it doesn't like the trailing new line? Try `trim()`ing it... — DaveRandom, Jan 23 '12 at 13:02
Also, make sure you have `urlencode()`d the data, if you are passing this as `application/x-www-form-urlencoded`, which it sounds like you are — DaveRandom, Jan 23 '12 at 13:05
Sounds like it may be a problem with the .NET service then - is this something you control? If not, ask the administrator of that service for more information. — DaveRandom, Jan 23 '12 at 13:12
Maybe [this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/291455/xml-data-at-root-level-is-invalid) will help? Your string may contain an UTF-8 BOM. — DaveRandom, Jan 23 '12 at 13:13

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 24 '12 at 04:23

I just figured it out and the solution was to use fsocksopen instead of curl. I do not have an accurate answer for that but when I was using curl, it added some extra stuffs to my content; my content length was significantly longer than it is actually supposed to be.

XmlException: Data at the root level is invalid

1 Answers1