Validation Errors

[William Grimsley]

Hi Ken/others,

I've put the word '&' into my URL but it's still not validating...

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http% ... co%2euk%2f

Please can someone help?

Thanks,

William

[saratogaWX]

You have now encountered the double-substitution issue with XML

In your flyout-menu.xml you have

Code: Select all

    <item caption="Met Office" link="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/fernwood-ottery-st-mary#?tab=fiveDay&fcTime&=1366844400"/>

which I think should be

Code: Select all

    <item caption="Met Office" link="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/fernwood-ottery-st-mary#?tab=fiveDay&fcTime=1366844400"/>

for the URL of

Code: Select all

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/fernwood-ottery-st-mary#?tab=fiveDay&fcTime=1366844400

When the XML is read by the XML parser in PHP, it automatically does a replacement for & entities to just a '&' (likewise for < to '<' and > to '>'), so the URL string will result in

Code: Select all

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/fernwood-ottery-st-mary#?tab=fiveDay&fcTime=1366844400

which contains the dreaded naked ampersands that the validator dislikes so much.

The trick is to double-encode each ampersand as '&amp;' to replace each '&' in the original URL in the XML.

The XML process will change the '&amp;' to '&amp' which will appear in the URL on the page, and the validator will be happy.

So.. the entry in your flyout-menu.xml should appear as

Code: Select all

    <item caption="Met Office" link="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/fernwood-ottery-st-mary#?tab=fiveDay&amp;fcTime=1366844400"/>

[William Grimsley]

You have now encountered the double-substitution issue with XML

In your flyout-menu.xml you have

Code: Select all

    <item caption="Met Office" link="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/fernwood-ottery-st-mary#?tab=fiveDay&fcTime&=1366844400"/>

which I think should be

Code: Select all

    <item caption="Met Office" link="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/fernwood-ottery-st-mary#?tab=fiveDay&fcTime=1366844400"/>

for the URL of

Code: Select all

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/fernwood-ottery-st-mary#?tab=fiveDay&fcTime=1366844400

When the XML is read by the XML parser in PHP, it automatically does a replacement for & entities to just a '&' (likewise for < to '<' and > to '>'), so the URL string will result in

Code: Select all

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/fernwood-ottery-st-mary#?tab=fiveDay&fcTime=1366844400

which contains the dreaded naked ampersands that the validator dislikes so much.

The trick is to double-encode each ampersand as '&amp;' to replace each '&' in the original URL in the XML.

The XML process will change the '&amp;' to '&amp' which will appear in the URL on the page, and the validator will be happy.

So.. the entry in your flyout-menu.xml should appear as

Code: Select all

    <item caption="Met Office" link="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/fernwood-ottery-st-mary#?tab=fiveDay&amp;fcTime=1366844400"/>

Hi Ken!

Nice to see you reply! I haven't spoken to you in a long time!

That fix did the trick! I've never come across ampersands in XML before, so I didn't know what to do! I just thought it was correct from previous ampersands in normal HTML/PHP code.

Thanks again,

William