Special Character Handling (&) in the payload content in PI 7.1

Question

Hello All,
My Scenario is Idoc to File. I need to handle some special characters like "&" in  XML payload content in PI 7.1. I am receiving & character in the text field.
eg:
<RECORD>
   <BEGDA>20100901</BEGDA>
   <STAT1>A</STAT1>
   <NAME1>Grandview&MO CLMR</NAME1> 
  <PERL_SUB_AREA>0005</PERL_SUB_AREA>
</RECORD>
I created java mapping by using the blog: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/9420. [original link is broken] [original link is broken] [original link is broken]
"The code used in java mapping is converting & into &amp"
Mapping is working fine in the test tab of Operation mapping and the message is successfully handling the record with & character(message with Chequered Flag).In the result tree view,it is showing 
<PERL_TEXT>Grandview&MO CLMR</PERL_TEXT
and in the source XML view
<PERL_TEXT>"Grandview&ampMO CLMR"</PERL_TEXT>
Issue:
Now the record is written as
<RECORD>
  <CUST_STATUS>A</CUST_STATUS>
  <COMPANY>1050</COMPANY>
  <PERL_AREA>1MOB</PERL_AREA>
  <PERL_TEXT>"Grandview&ampMO CLMR"</PERL_TEXT>
  <PERL_SUB_AREA>0005</PERL_SUB_AREA>
</RECORD>
Since & is coming as part of text, "it is converting & -> &amp" in the text field and the record is written in the file as
"A|1050|1MOB|Grandview&ampMO  CLMR|0005 ....."
While it should come as:
A|1050|1MOB|Grandview&MO  CLMR|0005 .....
Java mapping code used is as:
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.util.Map;
import com.sap.aii.mapping.api.StreamTransformation;
public class HandleAmpersand implements StreamTransformation {
     public void setParameter (Map param) { }
     public void execute (InputStream in, OutputStream out) {
          try {
               int read_data;
                    while ((read_data = in.read() ) != -1) {
                         if (read_data != '&') {
                              out.write(read_data);
                         } else {                         
                         out.write("&amp;".getBytes());
                    out.flush();
     } catch (Exception e) {  }
Also, i am using message mapping after java mapping in operation mapping
Please guide me where it is going wrong.
Thanks
Shikha Jain
Edited by: Jain Shikha on Jan 5, 2011 4:42 AM

Answer 1

Hi Jain Shikha,
I have faced similar issue in our production system.
Our issue:-
Sender system is sending :- DEKOR " OBS!
Other middleware is converting it and sending to SAP PI as :- DEKOR &amp ;quot; OBS!
Because of this, there is increase in size from 12 characters to 21 characters. We were getting error as the target side ABAP table has column width 15.
Our solution:- Wrote a java mapping to convert &amp;quot; to u201C
if (strContent.contains("&")) {
                    getTrace().addInfo("& is present");
                    strContent = strContent.replaceAll("&amp ;", "&");
                    strContent = strContent.replaceAll("&quot ;", "\"");
                    strContent = strContent.replaceAll("&apos ;", "\'");
                    strContent = strContent.replaceAll("&amp ;", "&");
                    strContent = strContent.replaceAll("&lt ;", "<");
                    strContent = strContent.replaceAll("&gt ;", ">");
Note: - quote ("), apostrophe ('), ampersand (&), less than (<), greater than (>) are special characters in XML. They should not be present in data. http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/
Not Well formed XML:
<Name>Raghuu2019s</Name>   <Name> Raghu & Vamsee </Name>
Well formed XML:
<Name>Raghu&apos;s</Name>   <Name>Raghu &amp; Vamsee</Name>
Graphical mapping, XSLT, DOM, SAX need well formed XML as input, otherwise they give parser exception.
Your solution:-
I understand you are using a graphical mapping. Follow below steps
Step 1: Convert u201CNot Well formed XMLu201D to u201CWell formed XMLu201D, using java mapping (which your doing already).
Step 2: Use Graphical mapping for your transformation logic.
Step 3: Again convert back u201CWell formed XMLu201D to u201CNot Well formed XMLu201D (As this what target system is expecting. Use below java mapping.
Regards ,
Raghu
Edited by: Raghu Vamsee on Jan 6, 2011 1:45 PM
Edited by: Raghu Vamsee on Jan 6, 2011 1:59 PM