[XERCESJ-977] Null pointer exception during DOM parsing

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.6.2
• Fix Version/s: 2.9.1
• Component/s: DOM (Level 3 Core)
• Assignee: Michael Glavassevich
• Reporter: Emily Horton
• Created: 09/Jun/04 19:40
• Updated: 04/Dec/09 11:38
• Resolved: 23/Feb/07 22:10

Description

We are parsing large numbers of xml files with DOM and are very occasionally getting a null pointer exception when parsing. In this case we tracked the problem down to a point in the text where there was a quoted attribute inside quoted text:
“[a]nimals should be housed in facilities dedicated to or assigned for that purpose...<bibr rid="b2"/>”

Any of the following changes to the document would get rid of the null pointer exception and allow parsing:
1) Changing the bibr tag to a different without any attributes.
2) Removing the outside quotes.
3) Moving the bibr tag to outside the quotes.

Here is the stack trace for the error:
522316528 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.dom.DeferredDocumentImpl.setChunkIndex(Unknown Source)
522316529 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.dom.DeferredDocumentImpl.insertBefore(Unknown Source)
522316529 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractDOMParser.endGeneralEntity(Unknown Source)
522316529 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.impl.dtd.XMLDTDValidator.endGeneralEntity(Unknown Source)
522316529 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.endEntity(Unknown Source)
522316530 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.endEntity(Unknown Source)
522316530 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager.endEntity(Unknown Source)
522316530 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityScanner.load(Unknown Source)
522316530 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityScanner.scanContent(Unknown Source)
522316530 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanContent(Unknown Source)
522316530 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDispatcher.dispatch(Unknown Source)
522316530 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(Unknown Source)
522316531 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
522316531 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.parsers.DTDConfiguration.parse(Unknown Source)
522316531 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)
522316531 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.parsers.DOMParser.parse(Unknown Source)
522316531 [Thread-200] ERROR -> org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(Unknown Source)
522316531 [Thread-200] ERROR -> javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder.parse(Unknown Source)

Issue Links

• is related to: COMDEV-4 External entity in XML causing null pointer exception during DocumentBuilder.parse