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WolfShade
WolfShade
Brainiac
March 14, 2018
Answered

Internet Exploder 11 thinks • is an undefined entity

  • March 14, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 745 views

Hello, all,

I am testing .rss files on our staging environment (worked flawlessly in dev), and for some reason FireFox isn't displaying any of the items.  So I try it in IE11, and I get the following:

Internet  Explorer cannot display this feed

This feed contains code errors.

Go back to the previous page.
More information

Reference to undefined entity 'bull'.
Line: 17 Character: 116

   <description>&lt;span style&#x3d;&quot;font-weight&#x3a; bold&#x3b;&quot;&gt;OFFICIAL&#x3a;&lt;&#x2f;span&gt;  &bull; Course Name&#x3a; Mastering Emotional Intelligence &bull;&#x9;Dates&#x3a; 21 March 2018 &bull;&#x9;Time&#x3a; 0800-1600 &bull;&#x9;Place&#x3a; Building 1948, Room 117 &#x28;Satellite Pharmacy&#x29; &bull;&#x9;Cost&#x3a; None &bull;&#x9;Attire&#x3a; Business casual &#x28;civilian &&#x23;8230&#x3b;</description>

IE doesn't recognize &bull; from HTML4.  I'm using ColdFusion EncodeForHTML() to generate the XML for my RSS, so that is where the &bull; is coming from.

Any suggestions?

V/r,

^ _ ^

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Jon Fritz

    Getting some progress.  At least FF got the first three displayed.  But now IE isn't making any sense.

    Whitespace is not allowed at this location.
    Line: 34 Character: 50

       <title>$15 Cardinals Ticket (includes hotdog & soda), Airmen Bowl Free & more</title>

    What the heck?  What whitespace??

    And the title isn't going through EncodeForHTML() - that's only being used on the description.  Everything else is clear-text.

    V/r,

    ^ _ ^


    Are those ampersands within the <title> set as & in the actual code?

    It might think you're trying to make entities with them if they're not.

    1 reply

    Jon Fritz
    Jon Fritz
    Community Expert
    March 14, 2018

    Are you trying to show your code as html text within your <description></description> tagset of the RSS feed?

    WolfShade
    WolfShadeAuthor
    Brainiac
    March 14, 2018

    Yes.  The feed is for PA Announcements, and occasionally they like to use bullet points for highlighting things.  I assumed that it would parse properly in browser.  But FF isn't displaying anything after the initial title (USTRANSCOM PA Announcements), and IE is balking at an old HTML4 Named Entity.

    V/r,

    ^ _ ^

    Jon Fritz
    Jon FritzCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    March 14, 2018

    Getting some progress.  At least FF got the first three displayed.  But now IE isn't making any sense.

    Whitespace is not allowed at this location.
    Line: 34 Character: 50

       <title>$15 Cardinals Ticket (includes hotdog & soda), Airmen Bowl Free & more</title>

    What the heck?  What whitespace??

    And the title isn't going through EncodeForHTML() - that's only being used on the description.  Everything else is clear-text.

    V/r,

    ^ _ ^


    Are those ampersands within the <title> set as & in the actual code?

    It might think you're trying to make entities with them if they're not.

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