Image paths in XML not valid

[j0ooooooo]

Hi There,

im working on indesign-Automation recently. We have a web-app, that spits out a XML and folder structure with all relevant content and a XML to get everything into Indesign. During Import a XLST-transformation fits everything to the templates we use. 
Strangely sometimes the image-Elements wont link correctly to the given .jpg's.
We use relative paths according to the documentation:

" File:///..../foto.jpg "

That bug breaks our automation workflow completely, as one has to manually link the "missing" images. 
I'm having a hard time figuring out what the probem might be. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.  

During testing i found out, that as soon as i copy the path from an updatet href-Attribute from indesign into a copy of the same XML via text-editor, a re-import into a new indesign-document works like a charm.  It finds the image and even transforms the relative path to a absolute one as it should be.
But when i compare the two URLs i can't see any difference. So i assume there must be some hidden things going on in the path that comes from our web-App. 

any Ideas ?

Thanks a lot
Joe

[leo.r]

Did you try to open the original XML files that your web app spits out in a text editor that shows all the invisible characters?

Even if you don't see any invisible characters, try to walk your URLs with an arrow key. I encountered situations where, surprisingly, it took two arrow hits to move between adjacent characters because something invisible whatever was inserted during text generation. Or check the string length of your URLs programmatically - will it match what you actually see?

Also, try to investigate the type of text encoding your web app produces and change it to a different one, if possible at all.

Just shots in the dark, of course.

[j0ooooooo · Accepted solution]

Hi,

thanks for that. It lead me to try replacing the string partially and see at what point the URL will get valid.  It was - of course - the german letter ö that came without a so called Combining Diaeresis unicode character. Indesign added this thing in the valid form of the URL. I guess there is a reason for URL encoding in the web...