Hi,

What is illegal about this fpdoc XML project file? fpdoc from FPC 3.1.1 keeps giving an exception error reading the XML document. The issue it has is with the XML Comment I have on lines 2-5 (ignore the line wrapping caused by my email client). If I remove that comment, then the XML is read, parsed and the documentation is generated without problem. But I fail to see what the problem is - the xml syntax looks fine to me.

====================================
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--
Run using:
fpdoc --macro=FPCDIR=/data/devel/fpc-3.1.1/src
--sproject=rtl-project.xml
-->
<docproject>
<options>
<option name="ostarget" value="FreeBSD"/>
<option name="cputarget" value="x86_64"/>
...snip...>
====================================

Here is the actual error:

$> /data/devel/fpc-3.1.1/x86_64-freebsd/bin/fpdoc
--macro=FPCDIR=/data/devel/fpc-3.0.4/src --project=rtl-project.xml FPDoc - Free Pascal Documentation Tool
Version 3.1.1 [2017/11/20]
(c) 2000 - 2003 Areca Systems GmbH / Sebastian Guenther, (c) 2005 - 2012 various FPC contributors

Exception at 000000000052F81A: EXMLReadError:
In 'stream:' (line 4 pos 13): Expected ">".

$>

Regards,
Graeme

can fpdoc process comments spanning multiple lines? what happens if you comment each line individually?

can fpdoc process comments spanning multiple lines?

Yes it can. That same XML file contains multi-line comments too, and those don't give issues.

eg:
============================================
...snip...
<option name="emit-notes" value="false"/>
<option name="hide-protected" value="true"/>
<!--
<option name="footer-date" value="yyyy-mm-dd"/>
<option name="format" value="html"/>
-->
<option name="format" value="ipf"/>
</options>
...snip...
============================================

what happens if you comment each line individually?

I tried this, it made no difference. fpdoc still choked.. Again, ignore the line wrapping caused by my email client. The comments are all in one line each.

==============================================
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Run using:-->
<!-- fpdoc --macro=FPCDIR=/data/devel/fpc-3.1.1/src --sproject=rtl-project.xml-->
<docproject>
<options>
<option name="ostarget" value="FreeBSD"/>
<option name="cputarget" value="x86_64"/>
<option name="hide-protected" value="true"/>
...snip...

============================================

$> /data/devel/fpc-3.1.1/x86_64-freebsd/bin/fpdoc
--macro=FPCDIR=/data/devel/fpc-3.0.4/src --project=rtl-project.xml FPDoc - Free Pascal Documentation Tool
Version 3.1.1 [2017/11/20]
(c) 2000 - 2003 Areca Systems GmbH / Sebastian Guenther, (c) 2005 - 2012 various FPC contributors

Exception at 000000000052F81A: EXMLReadError:
In 'stream:' (line 3 pos 17): Expected ">".

$>

From that error message it doesn't seem to like the "--macro" part

inside the xml comment. It seems fpdoc wants to process that "--" as the end of the comment.

As a test I replaced the two "--" parts in the comment on line 3 with a single "-" each - just to test. Magically fpdoc now processes the XML file without issues.

Using Mozilla Firefox (the web browser) and opening the original XML file, it too fails with a validation error. So I guess "--" is not allowed inside a xml comment block. Another reason to dislike XML. ;-)

Regards,
Graeme

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

From that error message it doesn't seem to like the "--macro" part inside the xml comment. It seems fpdoc wants to process that "--" as the end of the comment.

this was where i was headed... if the multi-line comments work properly, perhaps it is the "--" being misinterpreted...

As a test I replaced the two "--" parts in the comment on line 3 with a single "-" each - just to test. Magically fpdoc now processes the XML file without issues.

it seems to me that the end of the comment should be being hunted as "-->" instead of just "--"... i don't know the code, though...

Using Mozilla Firefox (the web browser) and opening the original XML file, it too fails with a validation error. So I guess "--" is not allowed inside a xml comment block. Another reason to dislike XML. ;-)

that's interesting... perhaps there's some form of escaping "--" in comments??

> So I guess "--" is not allowed inside a > xml comment block. Another reason to dislike XML. ;-)

W3C XML validator says it's invalid XML: " invalid comment declaration: found name start character outside comment but inside comment declaration" and it points at the "m" (from macro).

Bart