Simple XML question

Question

org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The markup in the document following the root element must be well-formed.
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DOMParser.parse(DOMParser.java:235)
at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(DocumentBuilderImpl.java:201)
at javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder.parse(Unknown Source)
I'm sure many of you you know exactly what causes this exception. Could you please help me with this one.
Here is some background info:
I'm using NetBeans IDE, with xerces.jar mounted (so it should be available). Here is the source code, that parses the file:
DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
Document document = builder.parse(
new java.io.File(this.resourceLocation)); //<-- Exception !!
Here is the (simplified) xml-file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE Configuration SYSTEM "params.dtd">
<Something>
<firstConfig>
<someAttr a="a" b="b" c="c" />
<someOtherAttr h="h" i="i" j="j" />
</firstConfig>
<secondConfig>
<attr name="name" value="value" />
</secondConfig>
</Something>
I created a dtd from this xml with NetBeans' dtd-wizard.
The xml-file is at the same directory as the compiled class-files and so is the dtd.
What could cause this exception to occur?!?
Thank you in advance,
-J-

Answer 1

Hi, not well formed, means that your xml does not match your DTD!
Obviously the root Element must be
<Configuration> and not <Something> according to your Doctype deklaration.
But in general, it's very useful to override the normal
ErrorHandler (like this):
import org.xml.sax.ErrorHandler;
import org.xml.sax.SAXParseException;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
/** Just extends the normal ErrorHandler to display the kind of error and the linenumber.
*  The column-number is displayed too, but it is normally not so usefull.
*  So its much easier to debug files.
public class SAXErrorHandler implements ErrorHandler {
    public SAXErrorHandler() {
    public void error(SAXParseException parm1) throws org.xml.sax.SAXException {
        System.err.println("Error");
        System.err.println( parm1.getLineNumber() +"\t"+ parm1.getColumnNumber() +"\t"+ parm1.getSystemId() +"\t"+ parm1.getMessage());
    public void fatalError(SAXParseException parm1) throws org.xml.sax.SAXException {
        System.err.println("FatalError");
        System.err.println( parm1.getLineNumber() +"\t"+parm1.getColumnNumber()+"\t"+parm1.getSystemId() +"\t"+parm1.getMessage());
    public void warning(SAXParseException parm1) throws org.xml.sax.SAXException {
        System.err.println("Warning");
        System.err.println( parm1.getLineNumber() +"\t"+parm1.getColumnNumber()+"\t"+parm1.getSystemId() +"\t"+parm1.getMessage());
        parm1.printStackTrace();
}Than add an new instance of this class to the DocumentBuilder.
builder.setErrorHandler(new SAXErrorHandler());So you will be able to figure out at least the line of code, which causes the problem.
Hope this helps.
Greetings Michael