ERROR: 'The reference to entity "L" must end with the ';' delimiter.'

[Farakh khan]

Hello,

I am trying to integrate "Flying Saucer" to generate output as pdf but getting the subject error:

content1=
		headerFooter()+
		"<div class='content'>";
			
			content2 = nullCheck(objectives, "Objectives");
			content3 = nullCheck(experience, "Experience");
		
		content4 =
			"<font >"+
			"Personal Information</font>"+
			personalInfo(cvId)+"<br></br>";
			
		content5="</div></body></html>";

content = content1+content2+content3+content4+content5;//+content6+content7+content8+content9;
System.out.println(content);	
		ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer(); 
                		 renderer.setDocumentFromString(content);		
	        	renderer.layout();
		OutputStream browserStream = res.getOutputStream();		
		renderer.createPDF(browserStream);              

Please advise

Thanks in anticipation

[Rob Spoor]

Can you show us the exact error message you get on the command line?

[Farakh khan]

ERROR:  'The reference to entity "L" must end with the ';' delimiter.'
org.xhtmlrenderer.util.XRRuntimeException: Can't load the XML resource (using TR
aX transformer). org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The reference to entity "L" must
 end with the ';' delimiter.
        at org.xhtmlrenderer.resource.XMLResource$XMLResourceBuilder.createXMLRe
source(XMLResource.java:191)
        at org.xhtmlrenderer.resource.XMLResource.load(XMLResource.java:75)
        at org.xhtmlrenderer.pdf.ITextRenderer.setDocumentFromString(ITextRender
er.java:157)
        at AttachedCV.doGet(AttachedCV.java:159)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:617)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(Appl
icationFilterChain.java:290)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationF
ilterChain.java:206)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperV
alve.java:233)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextV
alve.java:191)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.j
ava:128)
        at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.j
ava:102)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineVal
ve.java:109)
        at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.jav
a:286)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java
:845)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.proce
ss(Http11Protocol.java:583)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:44
7)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
Caused by: javax.xml.transform.TransformerException: org.xml.sax.SAXParseExcepti
on: The reference to entity "L" must end with the ';' delimiter.
        at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transfor
m(TransformerImpl.java:720)
        at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transfor
m(TransformerImpl.java:313)
        at org.xhtmlrenderer.resource.XMLResource$XMLResourceBuilder.createXMLRe
source(XMLResource.java:189)
        ... 17 more
Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The reference to entity "L" must end w
ith the ';' delimiter.
        at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(Ab
stractSAXParser.java:1231)
        at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transfor
mIdentity(TransformerImpl.java:637)
        at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transfor
m(TransformerImpl.java:708)
        ... 19 more

[Paul Clapham]

That would mean that your XML document contains an ampersand which hasn't been escaped properly. In particular the error message says that it's &L and it suggests that you might have meant to use an entity from the DTD, namely &L;.

But more likely you just produced malformed XML and should have had &L.

It looks like you're producing XML by string concatenation. So if you are inserting a text node into XML that way, make sure you escape characters which could be markup characters correctly. Those include & and < and >. Or alternatively, generate your XML with some standard API which knows how to work with XML.

[Farakh khan]

I am grateful to you from the bottom of my heart. This fixed my issue.

Kindest regards