Error occurred while parsing: Start of root element expected.

Question

This my code i use to try inserting xml data:
v_BFile := BFILENAME('XML_DIR',v_xmlfile);
DBMS_LOB.createTemporary(v_clob, cache=>false);
DBMS_LOB.open(v_bFile, DBMS_LOB.lob_readonly);
DBMS_LOB.loadFromFile(v_clob,v_BFile,DBMS_LOB.getLength(v_bfile));
DBMS_LOB.close(v_bfile);
v_parser := XMLPARSER.newParser;
XMLPARSER.parseClob(v_parser,v_clob);
On the parseClob is get the error message: Error occurred while parsing: Start of root element expected.
My xml is as follows
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<EMPLOYEES>
<EMP>
<EMPNO>8000</EMPNO>
<ENAME>JONES</ENAME>
<JOB>DBA</JOB>
<MGR>7839</MGR>
<HIREDATE>07-MAY-2002</HIREDATE>
<SAL>100</SAL>
<COMM>10</COMM>
<DEPTNO>10</DEPTNO>
</EMP>
<EMP>
<EMPNO>8001</EMPNO>
<ENAME>SMITH</ENAME>
<JOB>PROG</JOB>
<MGR />
<HIREDATE>01-MAY-2002</HIREDATE>
<SAL>200</SAL>
<COMM>10</COMM>
<DEPTNO>10</DEPTNO>
</EMP>
</EMPLOYEES>
What do i do wrong. Can someone help me

Answer 1

Kurt
Can you answer the following questions
Which Release of the database are you using ?
What is the database character set ?
What is the character set encoding of the source document ?
Remember that the loadFromFile procedure is designed to load binary data, and does not convert data into the database character set. If the database character set is UTF8, then the CLOB data has to be UCS2.
Can you dump the contents of the CLOB
If you are using 9iR2 then you can use the new procedure GetCLOBFromFile which will perform the correct coversions.
Also in 9iR2 we would recommend the use of the DBMS_XMLPARSER package, rather than the XMLPARSER package. The reason for this is the DBMS_XMLPARSER makes use of a 'C' based parser, running as native compiled code, which XMLPARSER still uses the Java based version of the parser. Performance with DBMS_XMLPARSER is much better.
Hope this helps