Query...where clause problem in XSQL

Question

I am getting error with following simple example: (however it works fine when the < sign changed to greater than > sign). Anybody any idea?
select * from emp
where empno < 7876
XSQL-005: XSQL page is not well-formed.
XML parse error at line , char
Expected name instead of .
null

Answer 1

The "less-than" sign (also known as the "left-angle-bracket") is a special character in an XML file, since it is the start of an element like <foo>.
So, you either have to write your query like this:
<xsql:query>
select * from emp where empno &;lt; 7839
</xsql:query>or like this, escaping the entire query with a CDATA section:
<xsql:query>
<![CDATA[
select * from emp where empno < 7839
]]>
</xsql:query>A third option is that instead of writing:
empno < 7839
you exploit the fact that this is equivalent to:
7839 > empno
and write it that way. Since "greater-than" sign does not need to be escaped specially in an XML file, it gets the job done, too.