Bug #9277: REXML fails to parse comments with multiple dashes ('-') in them

• Status: Rejected
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -
• ruby -v: ruby 2.0.0p247 (2013-06-27 revision 41674) [x86_64-darwin12.3.0]
• Backport: 1.9.3: UNKNOWN, 2.0.0: UNKNOWN, 2.1: UNKNOWN

[bhollis (Ben Hollis)]

=begin
REXML cannot handle multiple dashes in a comment:

require 'rexml/document'
REXML::Document.new('')
=end

=begin
REXML::ParseException: #<REXML::ParseException: Malformed comment
Line: 1
Position: 24
Last 80 unconsumed characters:

/Users/foo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rexml/parsers/baseparser.rb:351:in pull_event' /Users/foo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rexml/parsers/baseparser.rb:183:in pull'
/Users/foo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rexml/parsers/treeparser.rb:22:in parse' /Users/foo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rexml/document.rb:283:in build'
/Users/foo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rexml/document.rb:43:in `initialize'

...
Malformed comment
Line: 1
Position: 24
Last 80 unconsumed characters:

Line: 1
Position: 24
Last 80 unconsumed characters:

from /Users/foo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rexml/parsers/treeparser.rb:95:in `rescue in parse'  
from /Users/foo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rexml/parsers/treeparser.rb:20:in `parse' 
from /Users/foo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rexml/document.rb:283:in `build'
from /Users/foo/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rexml/document.rb:43:in `initialize'
    <extra stack trace ommitted>

=end

[zzak (zzak _)]

• Category set to lib
• Status changed from Open to Assigned
• Assignee set to kou (Kouhei Sutou)

[mame (Yusuke Endoh)]

As I recall correctly, the XML spec does not allow "--" in a comment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML#Comments

The string "--" (double-hyphen) is not allowed inside comments

--
Yusuke Endoh [e-mail]

[duerst (Martin Dürst)]

• Status changed from Assigned to Rejected
• Assignee deleted (kou (Kouhei Sutou))

mame (Yusuke Endoh) wrote:

As I recall correctly, the XML spec does not allow "--" in a comment.

Yes indeed. See http://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#sec-comments:

"For compatibility, the string " -- " (double-hyphen) MUST NOT occur within comments."

As for the phrase "for compatibility", this is what the spec says (http://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#dt-compat):
"for compatibility [Definition: Marks a sentence describing a feature of XML included solely to ensure that XML remains compatible with SGML.]"

So I have rejected this bug.