Xmldom.writetoclob hanging forever when writing a domnode to a temp clob

Question

Hi
Wondering has anyone come across anything similar (or know a work around)
1. Basically the the procedure below loads an XML file. (OK)
2. Removes reference to external dtd, ref was causing and error (OK)
3. Parses the XML (OK)
4. Gets a list of the "item" tags (OK) - should be up to 500 item elements in XML
5. Loops on all elements
a. writes node to temp clob *(PROBLEM HERE)*
b. Creates xmltype from clob (OK)
c. transforms xmltype and assigns to another xmltype (OK)
d. inserts new xmltype (OK)
This procedure is used by a threaded os java app to load thousands of files to db.
It works fine 99% of the time but for some files the procedure is hanging at (5.a : write domnode to clob using xmldom.writetoclob)
I am absolutely sure the problem is due to the characters in the domnode as all files that have hung on processing contain these bizarre characters,
the db character set is Unicode AL32UTF8 so it should be able to handle almost anything, saying that, if the it is a prob with the characters then why does
the loadclobfromfile procedure succeed.
Developed on Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit
I have no prob rejecting node and continue processing but procedure just hangs and i have to kill the thread on the os.
Is there a way to
1. Test for invalid AL32UTF8 chars and skip on error.
or
2. Get around the xmldom.writetoclob procedure and create an xmltype from the xmldom.domnode (i tried to convert domnode -> domdocument -> xmltype, no joy)
or
Open to suggestions
PROCEDURE
PROCEDURE process_blog_xml_file (
      p_file_name     IN   VARCHAR2,
      p_insert_date   IN   VARCHAR2,
      p_dir           IN   VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL
   IS
      newsurl        VARCHAR2 (80);
      parser         xmlparser.parser;
      newsxml        xmldom.domdocument;
      titles         xmldom.domnodelist;
      titles_found   NUMBER;
      curnode        xmldom.domnode;
      textchild      xmldom.domnode;
      dest_clob      CLOB;
      l_temp_clob    CLOB;
      src_clob       BFILE         := BFILENAME (g_zip_file_dir, p_file_name);
      dst_offset     NUMBER             := 1;
      src_offset     NUMBER             := 1;
      lang_ctx       NUMBER             := DBMS_LOB.default_lang_ctx;
      warning        NUMBER;
      l_xml          XMLTYPE;
      xsldata        XMLTYPE;
      xmldata        XMLTYPE;
      l_dir          VARCHAR2 (1000);
   BEGIN
      LOG (   'Start Processing file '
           || p_file_name
           || ' from zip '
           || p_insert_date
      IF p_dir IS NULL
      THEN
         SELECT directory_path
           INTO l_dir
           FROM all_directories
          WHERE directory_name = g_zip_file_dir;
      ELSE
         l_dir := p_dir;
      END IF;
      IF g_xsl_clob IS NULL
      THEN
         init_xsl_clob;
      END IF;
      com_polecat_xmldb_utils.set_load_date
                                  (TO_DATE (REPLACE (REPLACE (p_insert_date,
                                                     '.zip',
                                            'DD-MM-YYYY'
      LOG ('ITEM.Loaddate set : ' || com_polecat_xmldb_utils.get_load_date);
      xsldata := XMLTYPE.createxml (g_xsl_clob);
      LOG ('Read xsl file to clob');
      DBMS_LOB.OPEN (src_clob, DBMS_LOB.lob_readonly);
      DBMS_LOB.createtemporary (dest_clob, TRUE);
      DBMS_LOB.loadclobfromfile (dest_lob          => dest_clob,
                                 src_bfile         => src_clob,
                                 amount            => DBMS_LOB.getlength
                                                                     (src_clob),
                                 dest_offset       => dst_offset,
                                 src_offset        => src_offset,
                                 bfile_csid        => NLS_CHARSET_ID
                                                                   ('AL32UTF8'),
                                 lang_context      => lang_ctx,
                                 warning           => warning
      LOG ('Read xml file to clob');
      DBMS_LOB.CLOSE (src_clob);
      parser := xmlparser.newparser;
      dest_clob := REPLACE (dest_clob, g_blog_dtd_remove, '');
      LOG ('Parse xml ');
      xmlparser.parseclob (parser, dest_clob);
      DBMS_LOB.freetemporary (dest_clob);
      newsxml := xmlparser.getdocument (parser);
      xmlparser.freeparser (parser);
      titles := xmldom.getelementsbytagname (newsxml, 'item');
      LOG ('Load  blogs items to ITEM table. ');
      FOR j IN 1 .. xmldom.getlength (titles)
      LOOP
         curnode := xmldom.item (titles, j - 1);
         DBMS_LOB.freetemporary (l_temp_clob);
         DBMS_LOB.createtemporary (l_temp_clob, TRUE);
         LOG ('write node to temp clob ' || j);
         xmldom.writetoclob (curnode, l_temp_clob);                                              <-- Hanging Here
         LOG ('create xml type from clob ' || j);
         l_xml := XMLTYPE.createxml (l_temp_clob);
         LOG ('apply xsl transform to xml ' || j);
         xmldata := l_xml.transform (xsldata);
         LOG ('Insert to item table  ' || j);
         BEGIN
            INSERT INTO item
                 VALUES (xmldata);
         EXCEPTION
            WHEN OTHERS
            THEN
               LOG ('Error::  ' || SQLERRM);
         END;
      END LOOP;
      xmldom.freedocument (newsxml);
      LOG (   'Finished Processing file '
           || p_file_name
           || ' from zip '
           || p_insert_date
   EXCEPTION
      WHEN OTHERS
      THEN
         LOG (SQLERRM);
   END;note variables starting with g_ are defined in package spec
Cheers
Ian
Edited by: user3604054 on 01-Apr-2010 06:52
Edited by: user3604054 on 01-Apr-2010 14:57
Edited by: user3604054 on 01-Apr-2010 15:00
Edited by: user3604054 on 01-Apr-2010 15:00
Edited by: user3604054 on 01-Apr-2010 15:05
Edited by: user3604054 on 01-Apr-2010 15:06

Answer 1

2. Get around the xmldom.writetoclob procedure and create an xmltype from the xmldom.domnode (i tried to convert domnode -> domdocument -> xmltype, no joy) Which version of Oracle (4 digits)?
Also look in the FAQ in the upper right for how to use the tag to wrap PL/SQL to retain formatting to make it easier for all to read.