Problem parsing TextMessage from a JMS queue

Question

I'm attempting to read and parse a TextMessage from a JMS queue. The message is in an XML format and I'm trying to parse it using "oraext:parseXML". If I hardcode a value such as:
<copy>
<from expression="'&lt;ns:person xmlns:ns=&quot;urn:mynamespace&quot;>&lt;ns:personname>&lt;ns:first>bob&lt;/ns:first>&lt;/ns:personname>&lt;/ns:person>'"/>
<to variable="tempString"/>
</copy>
I can then parse "tempString" just fine. If I read the TextMessage in as a string and attempt the same thing, I constantly get
"XPath expression failed to execute. An error occurs while processing the XPath expression; the expression is oraext:parseXML(bpws:getVariableData('tempString')). The XPath expression failed to execute; the reason was: internal xpath error. Check the detailed root cause described in the exception message text and verify that the XPath query is correct. "
If I look at "tempString" in both scenarios (hardcoding the value and reading it in) the contents are basically the same, when reading it in via the JMS queue it does seem to put in line breaks after the elements to format it more like an XML document. For example, coming in from JMS the string looks like:
<ns:person>
<ns:personname>
<ns:first>bob</ns:first>
</ns:personname>
</ns:person>
But hardcoding the value it looks like:
<ns:person><ns:personname><ns:first>bob</ns:first></ns:personname></ns:person>
Should this affect anything?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure I understand the difference between XML and an XML string. XML is just a well-formed text string, right?
Anyway, your suggestion didn't work for me. The "ora:getContentAsString" call you suggested apparently strips away the XML and gives just the contents. For example, given the XML:
<ns:person>
<ns:personname>
<ns:first>bob</ns:first>
<ns:last>smith</ns:last>
</ns:personname>
</ns:person>
"ora:getContentAsString" yields: "bobsmith", not the data structure.
Again, thanks for the reply.