WW2DB RSS working?

temujin77 · #1 (**permalink**) August 20th, 2006, 09:15 PM

I noticed the RSS link for WW2DB have stopped. The last entry was dated 8/16 or so. Just want to see if it's broken for whatever reason?

Thanks for looking into it

Jim O · #2 (**permalink**) August 20th, 2006, 09:29 PM

Hmmm...I just ran it manually I got the following:

Quote:

XML Error: unknown at Line 0

though I can open it fine in Lektora, IE generates the following error:

Quote:

The XML page cannot be displayed
Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An invalid character was found in text content. Error processing resource 'http://ww2db.com/rss.xml'. Line 10, Position 761

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssCustom Written by C. Peter Chen

and this is the code downloaded from the feed:

Code:




World War II Database
http://www.ww2db.com
World War II Database RSS Service
en-us
Mon, 21 Aug 2006 01:00:00 GMT
Mon, 21 Aug 2006 01:00:00 GMT
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssCustom Written by C. Peter Cheneditor@ww2db.comeditor@ww2db.comHarold Ickeshttp://www.ww2db.com/rsslander.php?id=P288Sun, 20 Aug 2006 08:00:00 GMTHe 219 Uhuhttp://www.ww2db.com/rsslander.php?id=A58Sun, 20 Aug 2006 08:00:00 GMTPhilippines Campaign, Phase 1, the Leyte Campaignhttp://www.ww2db.com/rsslander.php?id=B5Sat, 19 Aug 2006 08:00:00 GMTHe 162 Volksjägerhttp://www.ww2db.com/rsslander.php?id=A57Sat, 19 Aug 2006 08:00:00 GMTShigeru Fukudomehttp://www.ww2db.com/rsslander.php?id=P174Thu, 17 Aug 2006 08:00:00 GMTPhilippines Campaign, Phase 2http://www.ww2db.com/rsslander.php?id=B27Thu, 17 Aug 2006 08:00:00 GMTPacific Strategy Conferencehttp://www.ww2db.com/rsslander.php?id=B75Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:00:00 GMTWilliam Leahyhttp://www.ww2db.com/rsslander.php?id=P287Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:00:00 GMTNagarahttp://www.ww2db.com/rsslander.php?id=S62Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:00:00 GMTGeorge Kenneyhttp://www.ww2db.com/rsslander.php?id=P117Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:00:00 GMT

I'm not sure what the issue would be. Have you changed anything in the program that generates it?

temujin77 · #3 (**permalink**) August 21st, 2006, 09:06 AM

Hey Jim,

Thanks for looking into it. It seems to be working ok on my end when I add it to my RSS reader as well. The line the forum's parser have trouble with links out to a page at Harvard that defines the formatting of my XML file, so that shouldn't be a problem?

Don't you love these little technological obstacles? :P

Jim O · #4 (**permalink**) August 21st, 2006, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by temujin77

Hey Jim,

Thanks for looking into it. It seems to be working ok on my end when I add it to my RSS reader as well. The line the forum's parser have trouble with links out to a page at Harvard that defines the formatting of my XML file, so that shouldn't be a problem?

Don't you love these little technological obstacles? :P

Yeah. What about the character at "Position 761" that IE tripped up on? I didn't have the patience to count that far last night?

temujin77 · #5 (**permalink**) August 21st, 2006, 04:08 PM

Oooh, line 10 character 761, I didn't see that in your original email, sorry about that. I looked at it and it's probably the cause: The character is "ä" as in "Volksjäger".

I guess either my Perl code didn't generate that character correctly, or your program is not picking it up :/

I guess when I get home today I'll change that entry's date to an older date so it won't show up on the XML. That should be a decent short-term solution for now until I figure out exactly why this is causing a problem.

Jim O · #6 (**permalink**) August 21st, 2006, 04:12 PM

OK. Let's see if that works. Just because it was the issue with IE does not mean it's the issue here but it's worth a shot.

temujin77 · #7 (**permalink**) August 21st, 2006, 08:44 PM

Jim, looks like the ä was indeed the culprit. Soon after I manually finagled the date on that article, all the items that didn't get pulled into the RSS section in the past week came in. I'm going to continue doing the same trick with WW2DB's RSS output until I figure out whether it was something on my end that's acting up -- I think it might be on my end and not yours.

Jim O · #8 (**permalink**) August 21st, 2006, 09:22 PM

That is odd. I know that the reader associated with this software does some strange things also. For instance, an apostrophe in the NY Times feed comes out as a question mark. I just manually edit those in the titles when I see them. But it handled the "ü" in Günther Grass in that same feed just fine. And Lektora in Firefox handled your feed fine while it caused the one here and Lektora in IE to hiccup. Seems the "standard" may not be all that standard.

temujin77 · #9 (**permalink**) August 22nd, 2006, 09:03 AM

Well Jim, working in software myself, these are the kind of random headaches that I have come to accept as a way of life

After looking at it yesterday, I actually believe that the problem is on my side. I believe my Perl code that generates the XML does not know how to handle non-English characters. I'm not a Linux expert, however, so I'm not sure if it is an operating system limitation. I'm trying to find out, though may take me a few days since work has been pretty demanding the last few days.