Question

I have an XML parser that crashes on incomplete XML data. So XML data fed to it could be one of the following:

<one><two>twocontent</two</one>  <a/><b/> ( the parser treats it as two root elements ) 

Element attributes are also handled ( though not shown above ).

Now, the problem is when I read data from socket I get data in fragments. For example:

<one>one  content</two>  </one> 

Thus, before sending the XML to the parser I have to construct a valid XML and send it. What programming construct ( like iteration, recursion etc ) would be the best fit for this kind of scenario.

I am programming in C++.

Please help.

Answer 1

Are there multiple writers? Why isn’t your parser validating the XML?

Use a tree, where every node represents an element and carries with it a dirty bit. The first occurrence of the node marks it as dirty i.e. you are expecting a closing tag, unless of course the node is of the form <a/>. Also, the first element, you encounter is the root.

When you hit a dirty node, keep pushing nodes in a stack, until you hit the closing tag, when you pop the contents.