Xerces serializer escape problem

[Erik Dasque]

Hi all,   I realize I might just be way over my head with this stuff. Please forgive me, I am a beginner when it comes to this stuff. Plus I am french so you can just blame everything on that :).   I am using Xerces serializer to print out an XML document in the console. While buidling the document in memory at some point I do :   Text myTxtNode = myXMLDocument.createTextNode((String) DOC_VALUES_Data.getProperty("STR_VALUE"));             DOC_VALUE_Elt.appendChild(myTxtNode);   if ((String) DOC_VALUES_Data.getProperty("STR_VALUE")) return null, the serializer bombs out (createTextNode doesn't)     java.lang.NullPointerException  at org.apache.xml.serialize.BaseMarkupSerializer.escape(BaseMarkupSerializer.java:1287)                     that's         result = new StringBuffer( source.length() );  at org.apache.xml.serialize.BaseMarkupSerializer.characters(BaseMarkupSerializer.java:910)  at org.apache.xml.serialize.BaseMarkupSerializer.serializeNode(BaseMarkupSerializer.java:732)  at org.apache.xml.serialize.XMLSerializer.serializeElement(XMLSerializer.java:464)  at org.apache.xml.serialize.BaseMarkupSerializer.serializeNode(BaseMarkupSerializer.java:754)  at org.apache.xml.serialize.XMLSerializer.serializeElement(XMLSerializer.java:464)  at org.apache.xml.serialize.BaseMarkupSerializer.serializeNode(BaseMarkupSerializer.java:754)  at org.apache.xml.serialize.BaseMarkupSerializer.serializeNode(BaseMarkupSerializer.java:795)  at org.apache.xml.serialize.BaseMarkupSerializer.serialize(BaseMarkupSerializer.java:385)  at com.silverstream.devcenter.drilldown.ServeXML.outputXMLDocumentFromInMemoryTree(ServeXML.java:574)  at com.silverstream.devcenter.drilldown.ServeXML.service(ServeXML.java:144)  at com.sssw.srv.busobj.AgoServletInvoker.serviceRequest(AgoServletInvoker.java:100)  at com.sssw.srv.resources.AgServletResource.service(AgServletResource.java:149)  at com.sssw.srv.resources.AgServletResource.perform(AgServletResource.java:107)  at com.sssw.srv.http.httpd.perform(httpd.java:3692)  at com.sssw.srv.http.Client.processRequest(Client.java:776)  at com.sssw.srv.http.Client.loop(Client.java:1106)  at com.sssw.srv.http.Client.runConnection(Client.java:1307)  at com.sssw.srv.http.Client.run(Client.java:1267)  at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:479)       Should the serializer be careful of this or should the developper make sure the textnode string is not null ? Or should the XERCES DOM implementation should bom out before that when I try to insert it there ? I know that if I take the same document and process it through the Xalan XSLT engine, the text node just return "null". Does Xalan use this serializer ? Should it just insert an empty text node ?   I don't know what the correct behavior would be. It just seems inconsistent the way it is.   BTW I use the following XSLT processor :   org.apache.xalan.xslt.XSLTProcessor processor = new org.apache.xalan.xslt.XSLTEngineImpl(new org.apache.xalan.xpath.xdom.XercesLiaison());   and this code to serialize :   FileOutputStream XMLoutputStream = new FileOutputStream("XMLoutputStream");   XMLSerializer serial = new XMLSerializer(oStream, of);   serial.serialize(XMLdoc);     TIA,   Ed.