How to make second test passing in these C# Xml unit tests? What do I miss in initialization of XmlReaderSettings?

Question

Issue description:

I need to fix an issue with resolving of standard HTML entitities.
I've implemented HtmlEntityReader - implementation of XmlReader which has a code to resolve entities
Public API of our system provides a methods with usage of XmlReader, so user can pass XmlReader created using one of the XmlReader.Create methods

Current code of my xml unit tests is below:

using System.Xml;
using NUnit.Framework;

namespace Tests
{
    [TestFixture]
    public class XmlTests
    {
        // this test works
        [Test]
        public void TestEntitiesResolving1()
        {
            var path = QA.ResolvePath(@"html\bugs\317.html");
            using (var reader = new XmlTextReader(path, new NameTable()))
            {
                reader.XmlResolver = null; //to prevent DTD downloading
                var wrapper = new HtmlEntityReader(reader, XmlUtils.HtmlEntities);
                while (wrapper.Read()) { }
            }
        }

        // this test does not work - why?
        // what's the difference in initialization of internal XmlTextReaderImpl?
        [Test]
        public void TestEntitiesResolving2()
        {
            var path = QA.ResolvePath(@"html\bugs\317.html");
            var settings = new XmlReaderSettings
                           {
                               XmlResolver = null, //to prevent DTD downloading
                               NameTable = new NameTable(),
                               ProhibitDtd = false,
                               CheckCharacters = false,
                           };
            using (var reader = XmlReader.Create(path, settings))
            {
                var wrapper = new HtmlEntityReader(reader, XmlUtils.HtmlEntities);
                while (wrapper.Read()) { }
            }
        }
    }
}

Partial code of HtmlEntityReader is below:

internal sealed class HtmlEntityReader : XmlReader
{
    readonly XmlReader _impl;
    readonly Hashtable _entitySet;
    string _entityValue;

    public HtmlEntityReader(XmlReader reader, Hashtable entitySet)
    {
        if (reader == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("reader");
        if (entitySet == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("entitySet");
        _impl = reader;
        _entitySet = entitySet;
    }

    public override XmlNodeType NodeType
    {
        get { return _entityValue != null ? XmlNodeType.Text : _impl.NodeType; }
    }

    public override string LocalName
    {
        get { return _entityValue != null ? string.Empty : _impl.LocalName; }
    }

    public override string Prefix
    {
        get { return _entityValue != null ? string.Empty : _impl.Prefix; }
    }

    public override string Name
    {
        get { return _entityValue != null ? string.Empty : _impl.Name; }
    }

    public override bool HasValue
    {
        get { return _entityValue != null || _impl.HasValue; }
    }

    public override string Value
    {
        get { return _entityValue ?? _impl.Value; }
    }

    public override bool CanResolveEntity
    {
        get { return true; }
    }

    public override void ResolveEntity()
    {
        //it seems this does not call - why?
    }

    public override bool Read()
    {
        _entityValue = null;
        if (!_impl.Read()) return false;
        if (NodeType == XmlNodeType.EntityReference)
        {
           //resolving of entity reference
           _entityValue = (string)_entitySet[Name];
        }
        return true;
    }

    // ... delegation of XmlReader abstract methods to _impl
}

I've got the exception:

System.Xml.XmlException: Reference to undeclared entity 'nbsp'. Line 4, position 5.
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(String res, String arg, Int32 lineNo, Int32 linePos)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.HandleGeneralEntityReference(String name, Boolean isInAttributeValue, Boolean pushFakeEntityIfNullResolver, Int32 entityStartLinePos)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.HandleEntityReference(Boolean isInAttributeValue, EntityExpandType expandType, ref Int32 charRefEndPos)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseText(ref Int32 startPos, ref Int32 endPos, ref Int32 outOrChars)
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseText()
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElementContent()
at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Read()
... private staff

Could you provide a quick advice or link to a solution while I am fixing / investigating / searching this issue through my own efforts?

I am unsure what you mean by "doesn't work". It appears to me that both of those tests should pass - and if one doesn't, it's because an exception is being thrown somewhere. If you're getting an exception, you really should tell us what it is. — Anon.
Agreed with first commenter. Copy the exception and put it here — Jon Limjap
I don't know if it's the problem specifically, but consider writing your own UrlResolver class for resolving the entities. I've seen such classes get called. — John Saunders
FYI: XmlResolver/XmlUrlResolver only gets called for external entities/resources not for character entities. — Scott Willeke

Scott Willeke Scott Willeke · Accepted Answer · 2010-02-21T09:14:35

I've done some research on your question and as best I can tell the only way to ensure that character entities are resolved is to declare them in a DTD. You can resolve the DTD contents yourself (e.g. for caching) by deriving an implementation from the Systm.Xml.XmlResolver base class and responding to GetEntity calls with a stream containing the DTD data.

I wrote an article some time back that explains how to push a default DTD onto the XmlParserContext if there is no DTD declared in your input document. This article is a little dated, but the same concept continues to work with XmlReaderSettings & XmlReader.Create by using an XmlReader.Create overload that accepts an XmlParserContext object as an argument.

Finally, it also looks like .NET 4 will help us out a little with a new XmlResolver derivative named XmlPreloadedResolver which seems to have the XHTML1 and RSS DTDs built in.

How to make second test passing in these C# Xml unit tests? What do I miss in initialization of XmlReaderSettings?

2 Answers