Why parser convert escape entities automatically?

Question

Hi,
I'm parsing XML with JDK 1.4.2 + SAX(Crimson).
I found that parser converts some of escape entities, like ">", or "<", automatically.
I made a simple SAX application to show the trouble.
The full codes are the followings,
import org.xml.sax.Attributes;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
import org.xml.sax.helpers.DefaultHandler;
public class SimpeXmlHandler extends DefaultHandler {
     private StringBuffer str = null;
     public void startElement(String namespaceURI, String localName,
               String qName, Attributes attributes) throws SAXException {
          str = new StringBuffer();
     public void endElement(String uri, String localName, String qName)
               throws SAXException {
          if (str != null) {
               if (qName.equalsIgnoreCase("tag")) {
                    System.out.println("tag=" + str.toString().trim());
     public void characters(char[] chars, int start, int length)
               throws SAXException {
          str.append(chars, start, length);
public class SimpleXmlTest {
     public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
          SimpeXmlHandler handler = new SimpeXmlHandler();
          SAXParserFactory factory = SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
          factory.setValidating(false);
          SAXParser parser = factory.newSAXParser();
          XMLReader xmlReader = parser.getXMLReader();
          xmlReader.setContentHandler(handler);
          InputStream in = new FileInputStream(new File("sample.xml"));
          InputSource source = new InputSource(in);
          xmlReader.parse(source);
}The XML sample is,
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
     <tag>a&gt;b</tag>
</root>
After run SimpleXmlTest, the output was,
tag=a>b
The result isn't my want.
I don't want the parser converts the chars.
How to do?
P.S.
I also tried with DOM(Dom4J), it didn't work, too.
Thanks!
a cup of Java, cheers!
Sha Jiang

Answer 1

The XML parser will convert all entities before the data is returned (to the program) either as sax events or as DOM nodes.
Also an XML writer will (normally) convert all characters that would result in not well-formed XML back into entities.
So, yes this behaviour cannot be cancelled and yes this behaviour should make it actually easier to work with XML.