DocumentBuilder screams IOException when DTD ref in XML!

Question

Hi
I have an interesting problem out here. I am using JAXP & Xerces. When I try and create a document object using the DocumentBuilder.parse(), I get an IOException, if the xml string contains a reference to the DTD. Infact another exception that I get to see is java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out.
BTW: I used xmlspy to validate the document and its fine.
Code Snippet
DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder db = null;
Document
try
db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
document = db.parse(new InputSource(new StringReader(xmlString)))
catch(SaxException se)
catch(IOException e)
System.out.println(" IOException ... ");
If the xml string has no reference to the DTD it works fine however with it the error.
Any thoughts, anyone ??
Thanks in advance
~Ed

Answer 1

do you use an absolute path or a relative one to point to the DTD?
the technique i use to ensure a succesful finding of my DTDs is to implement my own EntityResolver to point exactly where the files are - hence programmatically transforming relatives references "mydtd.dtd" to absolute ones "c:/project/files/mydtd.dtd".
db.setEntityResolver(new EntityResolver() {
public InputSource resolveEntity(java.lang.String publicId, java.lang.String systemId)
throws SAXException, java.io.IOException
  if (systemId.endsWith(".dtd"))
    return new InputSource(*** here point to the right folder + file ***);
  else
    return null;
});