SAX Parser and special character problem

Question

Hi,
Could anyone help with the following problem?
Background:
1. Using a SAX Parser (Oracle Implementation) to read XML from a CLOB, convert this XML to another format to be inserted in the database.
2. Due to performance issues we parse the input stream from the CLOB.
3. For same reason, we are not using XSL.
This is the problem we face:
1. Values of some of the tags in the XML have special characters (Ex: &, <, >).
2. While using the SAX Parser, the element handler function for the SAX Parser is called by the frame work with the value of these tags broken up with each of these characters being treated as a tag delimiter.
Ex: <Description>SomeText_A & SomeText_B</Description>
is treated as SomeText_A in first call to the handler; SomeText_B in the second call.
The handler function does not get to see the "&" character.
Thus, the final conversion is
Say, <Description> is to be converted to <FreeText>
we, get <FreeText>SomeText_A</FreeText>
<FreeText>SomeText_B</FreeText>
We tried using &; but it then breaks it up into SomeText_A, & and SomeText_B.
How can we get the whole value for the <Description> tag in the characters() function in the SAXParser so that we can convert it to <FreeText>SomeText_A & SomeText_B</FreeText>.
Thanks in advance..
Chirdeep.

Answer 1

We already tried that..looks like the line where I mentioned that it converted the entity referece characters to an ampersand..
"We tried using <entity reference for &> but it then breaks it up into SomeText_A, & and SomeText_B."
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