Special characters after end tag of XML document (HTTPService issue)

[Brian Dunphy]

I've got an E4X HTTPService in Flex that is calling a servlet which returns an XML
document. Approximately 80% of the time, the servlet works fine and the HTTPService
result is a valid XML doc -- the rest of the time, the HTTPService is giving me a fault:

[RPC Fault faultString="Error #1088: The markup in the document following the root
element must be well-formed." faultCode="Client.CouldNotDecode" faultDetail="null"]

After taking a look at the servlet directly in the browser (removing Flex from the equation),
I have not noticed any issue with the XML returned and we have run it through several
online validation tools. The servlet code that generated the XML is fine as well, we have
checked that numerous times.

I thought that the problem might be the resultFormat of the HTTPService (currently E4X),
so I changed it to 'text' so I could see if there was any special characters or issues with the
XML after Flex called the servlet. I discovered that there are seemingly random special
characters being appended to the end of the document (after the end tag). The string of
random special characters ranges from 2-10 in length.

Note: I have since put the resultFormat of the HTTPService back to e4x.

Does anybody have any idea why this might be happening? We have observed this on
Windows, OS X and Ubuntu Linux platforms, in IE7, Safari, Firefox (Mac) and Firefox
(Ubuntu).

Thanks for your help,

Brian

[Peter Farland]

Perhaps your special characters trailing the document are whitespace
(tabs, new lines, etc)?
 
There are known issues with constructing an XML instance (the basis for
E4X) from Strings containing whitespace between processing instructions
and the start of the root element (or trailing whitespace after the root
element) and with XML.ignoreWhitespace set to false.
 
Have you by any chance set XML.ignoreWhitespace to false?
 
If so, for your particular scenario of trailing special characters you
could keep HTTPService's resultFormat as "text" to get it as a raw
String, then use mx.utils.StringUtil.trim() on the String, and then
construct a new XML instance from your String new XML(result).
 

________________________________

From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On
Behalf Of klumikaze
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 2:40 PM
To: flexcoders@...
Subject: [flexcoders] Special characters after end tag of XML document
(HTTPService issue)



I've got an E4X HTTPService in Flex that is calling a servlet which
returns an XML
document. Approximately 80% of the time, the servlet works fine and the
HTTPService
result is a valid XML doc -- the rest of the time, the HTTPService is
giving me a fault:

[RPC Fault faultString="Error #1088: The markup in the document
following the root
element must be well-formed." faultCode="Client.CouldNotDecode"
faultDetail="null"]

After taking a look at the servlet directly in the browser (removing
Flex from the equation),
I have not noticed any issue with the XML returned and we have run it
through several
online validation tools. The servlet code that generated the XML is fine
as well, we have
checked that numerous times.

I thought that the problem might be the resultFormat of the HTTPService
(currently E4X),
so I changed it to 'text' so I could see if there was any special
characters or issues with the
XML after Flex called the servlet. I discovered that there are seemingly
random special
characters being appended to the end of the document (after the end
tag). The string of
random special characters ranges from 2-10 in length.

Note: I have since put the resultFormat of the HTTPService back to e4x.

Does anybody have any idea why this might be happening? We have observed
this on
Windows, OS X and Ubuntu Linux platforms, in IE7, Safari, Firefox (Mac)
and Firefox
(Ubuntu).

Thanks for your help,

Brian



 

[Brian Dunphy]

Peter,

I have not made any changes to the XML.ignoreWhitespace property.

I have implemented the trim as suggested, and I have also put a check
to see if the last character of the string is a > (a quick way to see
if there's trailing junk characters).

What I'm experiencing now is the same issue as before, however now I
can see the trailing characters traced in my flashlog. Just as a
sample, `á!àê!àî!`á! ï! appears at the end of one of them.

I have noted that we are experiencing this with more than one servlet
at this point, it appears that all of the servlets in our application
might be affected.

Any other thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks again,

Brian


On 3/5/07, Peter Farland <pfarland@...> wrote:

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Perhaps your special characters trailing the document are whitespace (tabs,
> new lines, etc)?
>
> There are known issues with constructing an XML instance (the basis for E4X)
> from Strings containing whitespace between processing instructions and the
> start of the root element (or trailing whitespace after the root element)
> and with XML.ignoreWhitespace set to false.
>
> Have you by any chance set XML.ignoreWhitespace to false?
>
> If so, for your particular scenario of trailing special characters you could
> keep HTTPService's resultFormat as "text" to get it as a raw String, then
> use mx.utils.StringUtil.trim() on the String, and then construct a new XML
> instance from your String new XML(result).
>
>
>  ________________________________
>  From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On
> Behalf Of klumikaze
> Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 2:40 PM
> To: flexcoders@...
> Subject: [flexcoders] Special characters after end tag of XML document
> (HTTPService issue)
>
>
>
>
>
> I've got an E4X HTTPService in Flex that is calling a servlet which returns
> an XML
> document. Approximately 80% of the time, the servlet works fine and the
> HTTPService
> result is a valid XML doc -- the rest of the time, the HTTPService is giving
> me a fault:
>
> [RPC Fault faultString="Error #1088: The markup in the document following
> the root
> element must be well-formed." faultCode="Client.CouldNotDecode"
> faultDetail="null"]
>
> After taking a look at the servlet directly in the browser (removing Flex
> from the equation),
> I have not noticed any issue with the XML returned and we have run it
> through several
> online validation tools. The servlet code that generated the XML is fine as
> well, we have
> checked that numerous times.
>
> I thought that the problem might be the resultFormat of the HTTPService
> (currently E4X),
> so I changed it to 'text' so I could see if there was any special characters
> or issues with the
> XML after Flex called the servlet. I discovered that there are seemingly
> random special
> characters being appended to the end of the document (after the end tag).
> The string of
> random special characters ranges from 2-10 in length.
>
> Note: I have since put the resultFormat of the HTTPService back to e4x.
>
> Does anybody have any idea why this might be happening? We have observed
> this on
> Windows, OS X and Ubuntu Linux platforms, in IE7, Safari, Firefox (Mac) and
> Firefox
> (Ubuntu).
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Brian
>
>
>
>  

--
Brian Dunphy

[Peter Farland]

If you're not using the proxy, then HTTPService is ultimately using flash.net.URLLoader to load and receive the data. You could try to take Flex out of the equation for a second and try the raw URLLoader API to see if it still occurs there.
 

________________________________

From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On Behalf Of Brian Dunphy
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 3:29 PM
To: flexcoders@...
Subject: Re: [flexcoders] Special characters after end tag of XML document (HTTPService issue)



Peter,

I have not made any changes to the XML.ignoreWhitespace property.

I have implemented the trim as suggested, and I have also put a check
to see if the last character of the string is a > (a quick way to see
if there's trailing junk characters).

What I'm experiencing now is the same issue as before, however now I
can see the trailing characters traced in my flashlog. Just as a
sample, `á!àê!àî!`á! ï! appears at the end of one of them.

I have noted that we are experiencing this with more than one servlet
at this point, it appears that all of the servlets in our application
might be affected.

Any other thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks again,

Brian

On 3/5/07, Peter Farland <pfarland@... <mailto:pfarland%40adobe.com> > wrote:

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Perhaps your special characters trailing the document are whitespace (tabs,
> new lines, etc)?
>
> There are known issues with constructing an XML instance (the basis for E4X)
> from Strings containing whitespace between processing instructions and the
> start of the root element (or trailing whitespace after the root element)
> and with XML.ignoreWhitespace set to false.
>
> Have you by any chance set XML.ignoreWhitespace to false?
>
> If so, for your particular scenario of trailing special characters you could
> keep HTTPService's resultFormat as "text" to get it as a raw String, then
> use mx.utils.StringUtil.trim() on the String, and then construct a new XML
> instance from your String new XML(result).
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>  [mailto:flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com> ] On
> Behalf Of klumikaze
> Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 2:40 PM
> To: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [flexcoders] Special characters after end tag of XML document
> (HTTPService issue)
>
>
>
>
>
> I've got an E4X HTTPService in Flex that is calling a servlet which returns
> an XML
> document. Approximately 80% of the time, the servlet works fine and the
> HTTPService
> result is a valid XML doc -- the rest of the time, the HTTPService is giving
> me a fault:
>
> [RPC Fault faultString="Error #1088: The markup in the document following
> the root
> element must be well-formed." faultCode="Client.CouldNotDecode"
> faultDetail="null"]
>
> After taking a look at the servlet directly in the browser (removing Flex
> from the equation),
> I have not noticed any issue with the XML returned and we have run it
> through several
> online validation tools. The servlet code that generated the XML is fine as
> well, we have
> checked that numerous times.
>
> I thought that the problem might be the resultFormat of the HTTPService
> (currently E4X),
> so I changed it to 'text' so I could see if there was any special characters
> or issues with the
> XML after Flex called the servlet. I discovered that there are seemingly
> random special
> characters being appended to the end of the document (after the end tag).
> The string of
> random special characters ranges from 2-10 in length.
>
> Note: I have since put the resultFormat of the HTTPService back to e4x.
>
> Does anybody have any idea why this might be happening? We have observed
> this on
> Windows, OS X and Ubuntu Linux platforms, in IE7, Safari, Firefox (Mac) and
> Firefox
> (Ubuntu).
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Brian
>
>
>
>

--
Brian Dunphy


 

[Brian Dunphy]

Thanks Peter

I have implemented the URLLoader method as suggested, and unfortunately I am still
experiencing the same issues.

I'm really starting to think this could be on the Java end of things -- anybody have any
insight there? We have set the character encoding of the servlet to UTF-8 explicitly, and we
have the content type set to text/xml.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Brian

--- In flexcoders@..., "Peter Farland" <pfarland@...> wrote:
>
> If you're not using the proxy, then HTTPService is ultimately using flash.net.URLLoader
to load and receive the data. You could try to take Flex out of the equation for a second
and try the raw URLLoader API to see if it still occurs there.
>  
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On Behalf Of
Brian Dunphy
> Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 3:29 PM
> To: flexcoders@...
> Subject: Re: [flexcoders] Special characters after end tag of XML document (HTTPService
issue)

>
>
>
> Peter,
>
> I have not made any changes to the XML.ignoreWhitespace property.
>
> I have implemented the trim as suggested, and I have also put a check
> to see if the last character of the string is a > (a quick way to see
> if there's trailing junk characters).
>
> What I'm experiencing now is the same issue as before, however now I
> can see the trailing characters traced in my flashlog. Just as a
> sample, `á!àê!àî!`á! ï! appears at the end of one of them.
>
> I have noted that we are experiencing this with more than one servlet
> at this point, it appears that all of the servlets in our application
> might be affected.
>
> Any other thoughts/suggestions?
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Brian
>
> On 3/5/07, Peter Farland <pfarland@... <mailto:pfarland%40adobe.com> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Perhaps your special characters trailing the document are whitespace (tabs,
> > new lines, etc)?
> >
> > There are known issues with constructing an XML instance (the basis for E4X)
> > from Strings containing whitespace between processing instructions and the
> > start of the root element (or trailing whitespace after the root element)
> > and with XML.ignoreWhitespace set to false.
> >
> > Have you by any chance set XML.ignoreWhitespace to false?
> >
> > If so, for your particular scenario of trailing special characters you could
> > keep HTTPService's resultFormat as "text" to get it as a raw String, then
> > use mx.utils.StringUtil.trim() on the String, and then construct a new XML
> > instance from your String new XML(result).
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>  

[mailto:flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com> ] On

> > Behalf Of klumikaze
> > Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 2:40 PM
> > To: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: [flexcoders] Special characters after end tag of XML document
> > (HTTPService issue)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I've got an E4X HTTPService in Flex that is calling a servlet which returns
> > an XML
> > document. Approximately 80% of the time, the servlet works fine and the
> > HTTPService
> > result is a valid XML doc -- the rest of the time, the HTTPService is giving
> > me a fault:
> >
> > [RPC Fault faultString="Error #1088: The markup in the document following
> > the root
> > element must be well-formed." faultCode="Client.CouldNotDecode"
> > faultDetail="null"]
> >
> > After taking a look at the servlet directly in the browser (removing Flex
> > from the equation),
> > I have not noticed any issue with the XML returned and we have run it
> > through several
> > online validation tools. The servlet code that generated the XML is fine as
> > well, we have
> > checked that numerous times.
> >
> > I thought that the problem might be the resultFormat of the HTTPService
> > (currently E4X),
> > so I changed it to 'text' so I could see if there was any special characters
> > or issues with the
> > XML after Flex called the servlet. I discovered that there are seemingly
> > random special
> > characters being appended to the end of the document (after the end tag).
> > The string of
> > random special characters ranges from 2-10 in length.
> >
> > Note: I have since put the resultFormat of the HTTPService back to e4x.
> >
> > Does anybody have any idea why this might be happening? We have observed
> > this on
> > Windows, OS X and Ubuntu Linux platforms, in IE7, Safari, Firefox (Mac) and
> > Firefox
> > (Ubuntu).
> >
> > Thanks for your help,
> >
> > Brian
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Brian Dunphy
>

[Peter Farland]

You could use an HTTP sniffer to prove that the content is coming from your servlet. As for a cause, I would look at the code writing to the response stream, whether you're flushing the buffer when you're finished, whether you're writing to the stream using a different encoding, whether you're swallowing any unexpected exceptions, whether the content length reported is accurate, etc. Also I'm guessing that you're converting your XML Document to a String before serializing it in the response... I'd check this output before it returns too.

________________________________

From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On Behalf Of klumikaze
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 9:56 AM
To: flexcoders@...
Subject: [flexcoders] Re: Special characters after end tag of XML document (HTTPService issue)



Thanks Peter

I have implemented the URLLoader method as suggested, and unfortunately I am still
experiencing the same issues.

I'm really starting to think this could be on the Java end of things -- anybody have any
insight there? We have set the character encoding of the servlet to UTF-8 explicitly, and we
have the content type set to text/xml.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Brian

--- In flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com> , "Peter Farland" <pfarland@...> wrote:
>
> If you're not using the proxy, then HTTPService is ultimately using flash.net.URLLoader
to load and receive the data. You could try to take Flex out of the equation for a second
and try the raw URLLoader API to see if it still occurs there.
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>  [mailto:flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com> ] On Behalf Of
Brian Dunphy
> Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 3:29 PM
> To: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: [flexcoders] Special characters after end tag of XML document (HTTPService
issue)

>
>
>
> Peter,
>
> I have not made any changes to the XML.ignoreWhitespace property.
>
> I have implemented the trim as suggested, and I have also put a check
> to see if the last character of the string is a > (a quick way to see
> if there's trailing junk characters).
>
> What I'm experiencing now is the same issue as before, however now I
> can see the trailing characters traced in my flashlog. Just as a
> sample, `á!àê!àî!`á! ï! appears at the end of one of them.
>
> I have noted that we are experiencing this with more than one servlet
> at this point, it appears that all of the servlets in our application
> might be affected.
>
> Any other thoughts/suggestions?
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Brian
>
> On 3/5/07, Peter Farland <pfarland@... <mailto:pfarland%40adobe.com> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Perhaps your special characters trailing the document are whitespace (tabs,
> > new lines, etc)?
> >
> > There are known issues with constructing an XML instance (the basis for E4X)
> > from Strings containing whitespace between processing instructions and the
> > start of the root element (or trailing whitespace after the root element)
> > and with XML.ignoreWhitespace set to false.
> >
> > Have you by any chance set XML.ignoreWhitespace to false?
> >
> > If so, for your particular scenario of trailing special characters you could
> > keep HTTPService's resultFormat as "text" to get it as a raw String, then
> > use mx.utils.StringUtil.trim() on the String, and then construct a new XML
> > instance from your String new XML(result).
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>  <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>

[mailto:flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>  <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com> ] On

> > Behalf Of klumikaze
> > Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 2:40 PM
> > To: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>  <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: [flexcoders] Special characters after end tag of XML document
> > (HTTPService issue)
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I've got an E4X HTTPService in Flex that is calling a servlet which returns
> > an XML
> > document. Approximately 80% of the time, the servlet works fine and the
> > HTTPService
> > result is a valid XML doc -- the rest of the time, the HTTPService is giving
> > me a fault:
> >
> > [RPC Fault faultString="Error #1088: The markup in the document following
> > the root
> > element must be well-formed." faultCode="Client.CouldNotDecode"
> > faultDetail="null"]
> >
> > After taking a look at the servlet directly in the browser (removing Flex
> > from the equation),
> > I have not noticed any issue with the XML returned and we have run it
> > through several
> > online validation tools. The servlet code that generated the XML is fine as
> > well, we have
> > checked that numerous times.
> >
> > I thought that the problem might be the resultFormat of the HTTPService
> > (currently E4X),
> > so I changed it to 'text' so I could see if there was any special characters
> > or issues with the
> > XML after Flex called the servlet. I discovered that there are seemingly
> > random special
> > characters being appended to the end of the document (after the end tag).
> > The string of
> > random special characters ranges from 2-10 in length.
> >
> > Note: I have since put the resultFormat of the HTTPService back to e4x.
> >
> > Does anybody have any idea why this might be happening? We have observed
> > this on
> > Windows, OS X and Ubuntu Linux platforms, in IE7, Safari, Firefox (Mac) and
> > Firefox
> > (Ubuntu).
> >
> > Thanks for your help,
> >
> > Brian
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Brian Dunphy
>

 

[Brian Dunphy]

Peter,

We've installed TamperData for Firefox and we've done some extensive testing with it to
see if the special characters exist in the HTTP responses. We have been unable to
reproduce the problem there. We have tried setting the content length header accurately
based on the data the servlet spits out. We have also checked the other items you
suggested and they appear to be fine... we are actually just generating a string of XML
manually, there is no XML document in the equation.

At this point we are wondering what the possibility is that the HTTPService (or URLLoader)
has problems handling chunked data? Is there a maximum length that the HTTPService/
URLLoader can handle for an XML document? Our average document is sitting at around
500 lines of XML.

Thanks again for your assistance with this issue,

Brian

--- In flexcoders@..., "Peter Farland" <pfarland@...> wrote:
>
> You could use an HTTP sniffer to prove that the content is coming from your servlet. As
for a cause, I would look at the code writing to the response stream, whether you're
flushing the buffer when you're finished, whether you're writing to the stream using a
different encoding, whether you're swallowing any unexpected exceptions, whether the
content length reported is accurate, etc. Also I'm guessing that you're converting your XML
Document to a String before serializing it in the response... I'd check this output before it
returns too.
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On Behalf Of
klumikaze
> Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 9:56 AM
> To: flexcoders@...
> Subject: [flexcoders] Re: Special characters after end tag of XML document (HTTPService
issue)

>
>
>
> Thanks Peter
>
> I have implemented the URLLoader method as suggested, and unfortunately I am still
> experiencing the same issues.
>
> I'm really starting to think this could be on the Java end of things -- anybody have any
> insight there? We have set the character encoding of the servlet to UTF-8 explicitly, and

we
> have the content type set to text/xml.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brian
>
> --- In flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com> , "Peter
Farland" <pfarland@> wrote:
> >
> > If you're not using the proxy, then HTTPService is ultimately using
flash.net.URLLoader
> to load and receive the data. You could try to take Flex out of the equation for a second
> and try the raw URLLoader API to see if it still occurs there.
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > From: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>  
[mailto:flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com> ] On
Behalf Of
> Brian Dunphy
> > Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 3:29 PM
> > To: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: Re: [flexcoders] Special characters after end tag of XML document
(HTTPService

> issue)
> >
> >
> >
> > Peter,
> >
> > I have not made any changes to the XML.ignoreWhitespace property.
> >
> > I have implemented the trim as suggested, and I have also put a check
> > to see if the last character of the string is a > (a quick way to see
> > if there's trailing junk characters).
> >
> > What I'm experiencing now is the same issue as before, however now I
> > can see the trailing characters traced in my flashlog. Just as a
> > sample, `á!àê!àî!`á! ï! appears at the end of one of them.
> >
> > I have noted that we are experiencing this with more than one servlet
> > at this point, it appears that all of the servlets in our application
> > might be affected.
> >
> > Any other thoughts/suggestions?
> >
> > Thanks again,
> >
> > Brian
> >
> > On 3/5/07, Peter Farland <pfarland@ <mailto:pfarland%40adobe.com> > wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Perhaps your special characters trailing the document are whitespace (tabs,
> > > new lines, etc)?
> > >
> > > There are known issues with constructing an XML instance (the basis for E4X)
> > > from Strings containing whitespace between processing instructions and the
> > > start of the root element (or trailing whitespace after the root element)
> > > and with XML.ignoreWhitespace set to false.
> > >
> > > Have you by any chance set XML.ignoreWhitespace to false?
> > >
> > > If so, for your particular scenario of trailing special characters you could
> > > keep HTTPService's resultFormat as "text" to get it as a raw String, then
> > > use mx.utils.StringUtil.trim() on the String, and then construct a new XML
> > > instance from your String new XML(result).
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>  

<mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>
> [mailto:flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>  
<mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com> ] On
> > > Behalf Of klumikaze
> > > Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 2:40 PM
> > > To: flexcoders@... <mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>  
<mailto:flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com>

> > > Subject: [flexcoders] Special characters after end tag of XML document
> > > (HTTPService issue)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I've got an E4X HTTPService in Flex that is calling a servlet which returns
> > > an XML
> > > document. Approximately 80% of the time, the servlet works fine and the
> > > HTTPService
> > > result is a valid XML doc -- the rest of the time, the HTTPService is giving
> > > me a fault:
> > >
> > > [RPC Fault faultString="Error #1088: The markup in the document following
> > > the root
> > > element must be well-formed." faultCode="Client.CouldNotDecode"
> > > faultDetail="null"]
> > >
> > > After taking a look at the servlet directly in the browser (removing Flex
> > > from the equation),
> > > I have not noticed any issue with the XML returned and we have run it
> > > through several
> > > online validation tools. The servlet code that generated the XML is fine as
> > > well, we have
> > > checked that numerous times.
> > >
> > > I thought that the problem might be the resultFormat of the HTTPService
> > > (currently E4X),
> > > so I changed it to 'text' so I could see if there was any special characters
> > > or issues with the
> > > XML after Flex called the servlet. I discovered that there are seemingly
> > > random special
> > > characters being appended to the end of the document (after the end tag).
> > > The string of
> > > random special characters ranges from 2-10 in length.
> > >
> > > Note: I have since put the resultFormat of the HTTPService back to e4x.
> > >
> > > Does anybody have any idea why this might be happening? We have observed
> > > this on
> > > Windows, OS X and Ubuntu Linux platforms, in IE7, Safari, Firefox (Mac) and
> > > Firefox
> > > (Ubuntu).
> > >
> > > Thanks for your help,
> > >
> > > Brian
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Brian Dunphy
> >
>

[Peter Farland]

I don't believe there is a maximum length (or at least the length you
describe is surely not a problem in itself), however if you are using
chunked encoding then the length of the document will change the way the
data is sent (i.e. chunked or not).
 
On reading that you were dealing with chunked data, it reminded me of a
known issue (Bug 191814) with the Flash Player in MSIE. The issue occurs
when a Cache-Control: no-cache header is sent but with chunked encoding
and gzip'ed content.

I believe a work around is to append "must-revalidate" to the
Cache-Control no-cache header:

Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate

This Microsoft KB article
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/871205 
mentions the issue occurs with HTTPS, but we've seen reports with HTTP
too.

Pete

________________________________

From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On
Behalf Of klumikaze
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 12:21 PM
To: flexcoders@...
Subject: [flexcoders] Re: Special characters after end tag of XML
document (HTTPService issue)



Peter,

We've installed TamperData for Firefox and we've done some extensive
testing with it to
see if the special characters exist in the HTTP responses. We have been
unable to
reproduce the problem there. We have tried setting the content length
header accurately
based on the data the servlet spits out. We have also checked the other
items you
suggested and they appear to be fine... we are actually just generating
a string of XML
manually, there is no XML document in the equation.

At this point we are wondering what the possibility is that the
HTTPService (or URLLoader)
has problems handling chunked data? Is there a maximum length that the
HTTPService/
URLLoader can handle for an XML document? Our average document is
sitting at around
500 lines of XML.

Thanks again for your assistance with this issue,

Brian

[Brian Dunphy]

Peter,

I have resolved the issue. It turns out that when I was adding a character set to our
application (so users could enter French/Latin characters), I used the old
System.useCodePage trick from my days as a Flash developer... when that property is set
to true, the extra characters get appended to the end of the HTTPService results I suspect
due to the servlets being UTF-8 (not Unicode) -- I could be wrong about the specifics.

Thank you very much for your help though.

Brian

--- In flexcoders@..., "Peter Farland" <pfarland@...> wrote:

>
>
> I don't believe there is a maximum length (or at least the length you
> describe is surely not a problem in itself), however if you are using
> chunked encoding then the length of the document will change the way the
> data is sent (i.e. chunked or not).
>  
> On reading that you were dealing with chunked data, it reminded me of a
> known issue (Bug 191814) with the Flash Player in MSIE. The issue occurs
> when a Cache-Control: no-cache header is sent but with chunked encoding
> and gzip'ed content.
>
> I believe a work around is to append "must-revalidate" to the
> Cache-Control no-cache header:
>
> Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate
>
> This Microsoft KB article
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/871205 
> mentions the issue occurs with HTTPS, but we've seen reports with HTTP
> too.
>
> Pete
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: flexcoders@... [mailto:flexcoders@...] On
> Behalf Of klumikaze
> Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 12:21 PM
> To: flexcoders@...
> Subject: [flexcoders] Re: Special characters after end tag of XML
> document (HTTPService issue)
>
>
>
> Peter,
>
> We've installed TamperData for Firefox and we've done some extensive
> testing with it to
> see if the special characters exist in the HTTP responses. We have been
> unable to
> reproduce the problem there. We have tried setting the content length
> header accurately
> based on the data the servlet spits out. We have also checked the other
> items you
> suggested and they appear to be fine... we are actually just generating
> a string of XML
> manually, there is no XML document in the equation.
>
> At this point we are wondering what the possibility is that the
> HTTPService (or URLLoader)
> has problems handling chunked data? Is there a maximum length that the
> HTTPService/
> URLLoader can handle for an XML document? Our average document is
> sitting at around
> 500 lines of XML.
>
> Thanks again for your assistance with this issue,
>
> Brian
>