Parsing error about "FF FE" in xml file

Question

dear all
here is my code
DocumentBuilderFactory factory= DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
factory.setValidating(false);
DocumentBuilder builder= factory.newDocumentBuilder();
builder.setErrorHandler(new MyErrorHandler());
Document doc= builder.parse(new File(IFName));
//dont work ,too.
//Document doc=builder.parse(new InputSource(new InputStreamReader(new FileInputStream(new File(IFName)), "UTF-16LE")));          
parseNode(doc.getDocumentElement());when i was parsing the xml make by c#
the xml file is like this
&#12539;&#65407;<Space><Region name="NorthAmerica"><Route name="TR24" color="blue"><Operation trainnum="980"><Company>Jupiter Railroad Corp.</Company><TrainStyle>Silver</TrainStyle></Operation><Stations><Start>NorthAmerica08</Start><End>NorthAmerica12</End></Stations></Route><Route name="TR39" color="black"><Operation trainnum="321"><Company>Earth Railroad Corp.</Company><TrainStyle>Express</TrainStyle></Operation><Stations><Start>NorthAmerica17</Start><End>NorthAmerica01</End></Stations></Route><Route name="TR52" color="black"><Operation trainnum="627"><Company>Sun Railroad Corp.</Company><TrainStyle>Plain</TrainStyle></Operation><Stations><Start>NorthAmerica19</Start><End>NorthAmerica37</End></Stations></Route><Route name="TR53" color="blue"><Operation trainnum="173"><Company>Neptune Railroad Corp.</Company><TrainStyle>Fast</TrainStyle></Operation><Stations><Start>NorthAmerica24</Start><End>NorthAmerica38</End></Stations></Route><Route name="TR82" color="yellow"><Operation trainnum="986"><Company>Saturn Railroad Corp.</Company><TrainStyle>Silver</TrainStyle></Operation><Stations><Start>NorthAmerica32</Start><End>NorthAmerica20</End></Stations></Route></Region></Space>u can see there is a funny character before the root element
if change to ascii mode , i can see the FF FE code;
i found that FF FE means the UTF-16 Little Endian.
and my parser code will make an exception like SAXParseException: missing document root element
is there any nice solution for this problem?
if i use
SAXTransformerFactory tFactory;
TransformerHandler transformerH;
Transformer transformer;
tFactory= (SAXTransformerFactory)SAXTransformerFactory.newInstance();
transformerH= tFactory.newTransformerHandler();
transformer= transformerH.getTransformer();
FileWriter out= new FileWriter(OFName);
StreamResult result= new StreamResult(out);
transformerH.setResult(result);to make my xml file in java without setting specific properties
it will make the same xml like C#,a FF FE at the file beginning.
best regards.

Answer 1

Okay, this reply has been a real long time in coming, but I just had a similar situation. I have an XML file I need to edit with a Java program. A third-party program that I have no control over uses the file, so the XML file must remain compatible. For my needs, the DOM model in the JAXP package seemed like the best solution. As a plus, I also have SAX support built in.
Here is the self-contained program.
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
import javax.xml.transform.OutputKeys;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerException;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
* This class copies an XML file after first creating a DOM document out of it.
public class OpenClose {
     public static final void main(String[] args) {
          String fileName = "c:\\test.xml";
          System.out.println("Processing Started.");
          try {
               Document doc = load(fileName);
               // Do whatever to the document.
               fileName = "c:\\testOut.xml";
               save(fileName, doc);
               System.out.println("No errors!");
          } catch (OpenCloseException e) {
               System.out.println("Error reported by module:");
               System.out.println("\t" + e.getSource());
               System.out.println("Error:");
               System.out.println("\t" + e.getMessage());
               Throwable cause = e.getCause();
               if (cause != null) {
                    System.out.println("Originating Error:");
                    System.out.println("\t" + cause.toString());
          System.out.println("Processing Ended.");
      * Create a Document from the specified XML document.
      * @param fileName is the name of the external XML file.
      * @return a DOM document.
      * @throws OpenCloseException on any error.
     public static Document load(String fileName) throws OpenCloseException {
          Document doc = null;
          File file = new File(fileName);
          if (!file.exists()) {
               throw new OpenCloseException(
                    "Load of file \""
                         + fileName
                         + "\" failed because the file does not exist.",
                    null,
                    "OpenClose");
          DocumentBuilderFactory domFactory =
               DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
          domFactory.setNamespaceAware(false);
          domFactory.setValidating(false);
          domFactory.setCoalescing(false);
          try {
               DocumentBuilder docBuilder = domFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
               doc = docBuilder.parse(file);
          } catch (ParserConfigurationException e) {
               throw new OpenCloseException(
                    "Load failed due to a Document Builder related error:\n"
                         + e.toString(),
                    e,
                    "OpenClose");
          } catch (SAXException e) {
               throw new OpenCloseException(
                    "Load failed due to Document Builder parsing related error:\n"
                         + e.toString(),
                    e,
                    "OpenClose");
          } catch (IOException e) {
               throw new OpenCloseException(
                    "Load failed due to a file related error:\n" + e.toString(),
                    e,
                    "OpenClose");
          return doc;
      * Save the XML File object to its external file.
      * @param fileName is the name of the file to save to.
      * @param doc is the document to save.
      * @throws OpenCloseException on any error.
     public static void save(String fileName, Document doc)
          throws OpenCloseException {
          //I cannot seem to get Java to write this automatically, so I
          //force it to do my bidding.
          final int BYTE_ORDER_MARK = 0xFEFF;
          File file = new File(fileName);
          try {
               TransformerFactory tFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
               Transformer transformer = tFactory.newTransformer();
               //UCS-2 is the UTF-16LE of the Microsoft world.
               transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.ENCODING, "UCS-2");
               DOMSource source = new DOMSource(doc);
               FileOutputStream fs = new FileOutputStream(file);
               //UCS-2 here would cause an exception.
               OutputStreamWriter out = new OutputStreamWriter(fs, "UTF-16LE");
               out.write(BYTE_ORDER_MARK); //Must include
               StreamResult result = new StreamResult(out);
               transformer.transform(source, result);
          } catch (TransformerException e) {
               throw new OpenCloseException(
                    "Save failed due to a Transformer related error:\n"
                         + e.toString(),
                    e,
                    "OpenClose");
          } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
               throw new OpenCloseException(
                    "Save failed due to an Unsupported Encoding Exception:\n"
                         + e.toString(),
                    e,
                    "OpenClose");
          } catch (IOException e) {
               throw new OpenCloseException(
                    "Save failed due to a File error:\n" + e.toString(),
                    e,
                    "OpenClose");
class OpenCloseException extends Exception {
     private String source = "";
      * Create an exception with a message, a cause, and a source.
      * @param message is the error message.
      * @param cause is the throwable that created this exception.
      * @param source is the class name the initial exception fired in.
     public OpenCloseException(String message, Throwable cause, String source) {
          super(message, cause);
          this.source = source;
      * @return the class name creating the error initially.
     public String getSource() {
          return this.source;
}