My application supports REST API using Wink and a JAXB provider built in to the JDK (1.6). Sometimes I receive PUT requests that contain control characters.
As far as my application is concerned, the control characters constitute a valid and meaningful input. However, the application throws the notorious exception saying that it cannot digest these characters:
Message: An invalid XML character (Unicode: 0x13) was found in the element content of the document.]
at org.apache.wink.common.internal.providers.entity.xml.JAXBXmlProvider.readFrom(JAXBXmlProvider.java:107)
at org.apache.wink.server.internal.registry.ServerInjectableFactory$EntityParam.getValue(ServerInjectableFactory.java:190)
at org.apache.wink.common.internal.registry.InjectableFactory.instantiate(InjectableFactory.java:67)
at org.apache.wink.server.internal.handlers.CreateInvocationParametersHandler.handleRequest
There is probably no way to tell the JAXB provider to ignore these characters (since at some point I will have to parse the Xml, and illegal is illegal..). How can I make this work? Is there a way to instruct the Rest client to escape these characters before sending them?
Control characters are not allowed in XML so your data is not XML. The trouble with it is like X except for Y is that it would be difficult to define an API where Y can be whatever the individual thinks it should be. It is unlikely JAXB will accommodate you. You could use a filter to strip the illegal characters if that is acceptable; otherwise you will have to encode or escape the data in legal character data (e.g. with Base64.)