How do I safely insert potentially malformed HTML into a JSF page?

Question

I'm working on a JSF page that needs to have the corporate privacy policy updated. Rather than copy-and-paste the new text, I'd prefer to have the PrimeFaces dialog that displays it link to the privacy policy elsewhere. So, I'm doing this:

    <p:dialog id="dlgPrivacyPolicy">
        <ui:include src="https://cdn.mycompany.com/privacy/en-us/privacy.htm"/>
    </p:dialog>

The problem is, the HTML on that page is slightly malformed; there's a <meta> tag that isn't closed. This causes my JSF page to fail to compile.

I could track down whoever maintains that page and ask them to correct it, but that's a band-aid. If any more malformed HTML shows up on that page, it will crash mine. And having my page fail to load because the privacy policy didn't close a tag just isn't acceptable.

Is there a safe way for me to insert potentially malformed HTML into my page? Or am I stick with copying and pasting if I really want to avoid that issue?

I think you know better than this. The ideal solution is that the broken page should be fixed. In fact you page should crash. If you put in a fix that will handle malformed HTML you are just aiding and abetting bad coding practices. You page crashing because of someone else bad code is absolutely acceptable. What is unacceptable is someone writing malformed HTML. Coding is more than just punching code, it is also about writing good code at every level. Hold your developers to a higher standard and your code quality will improve. The Band Aid is the fix you are looking to implement — myqyl4
No, the ideal solution is that the broken page should be fixed and STAY fixed. The first I can do. The second is completely beyond my control; I'm a small fish in a very large pond here, with no power to dictate coding standards to the rest of the company. And if somebody omitting a closing </meta> on a static HTML page crashes my application, that's on me. — BlairHippo

Benjamin Caure Benjamin Caure · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-06T14:55:49

If you don't want xhtml compilation problem, you should not include the malformed page in server side but in client side, for example by running ajax request on it and include it by using innerHtml attribute of the dlgPrivacyPolicy div. Using JQuery :

$.ajax({
    url: "https://cdn.mycompany.com/privacy/en-us/privacy.htm"
})
.done(function( html ) {
    $( "#dlgPrivacyPolicy " ).html( html );
});

How do I safely insert potentially malformed HTML into a JSF page?

3 Answers