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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T23:21:03+00:00

I have written a simple C++ shell program to parse large XML files and

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I have written a simple C++ shell program to parse large XML files and fix syntax errors.

I have so far covered everything I can think of except strings within strings, for example.

<ROOT>
  <NODE attribute="This is a "string within" a string" />
<ROOT>

My program loops through the entire xml file character by character(keeping only a few characters in memory at a time for efficiency), it looks for things such as &<> etc and escapes them with &amp; &gt; &lt; etc. A basic example of what I am doing can be found at the accepted answer for this Escaping characters in large XML files

The question is: What conditions or logic can I use to detect “string within” to be able to escape the quotes to this:

<ROOT>
  <NODE attribute="This is a &quot;string within&quot; a string" />
<ROOT>

Is it even possible at all?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I think it’s difficult to decide where the attribute ends and another begins. I think you need to restrict the possible input you can parse otherwise you will have ambiguous cases such as this one:

    <ROOT>
  <NODE attribute="This is a "string within" a string" attribute2="This is another "string within" a string" />
<ROOT>

    These are either two attributes or one attribute.

    One assumption you could make is that after an equal number of double quotes and an equal sign a new attribute begins. Then you simply replace all the inner double quotes with your escape string. Or any equal sign after 2 ore more double quotes means new attribute. The same could be assumed for the end of node.

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