How to disable escaping using XMLOutputter

Question

I use XMLOutputter to write xml file to use it then in android. When the file is written, string

<string name="sname"><u>Text</u></string>

is written as

<string name="sname">&lt;u&gt;Text&lt;u&gt;</string>

I read "<u>Text<u>" from database and then put it into jdom Document. Then I write the document using

XMLOutputter outputter = new XMLOutputter(Format.getPrettyFormat());
Writer writer = new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(file), "utf-8");
outputter.output(doc, writer);
writer.close();

How can I prevent escaping and put the exact string from database to file? (I want to have '<', not < there)

Answer 1

You should be able to prevent escaping by:

• Extending XMLOutputer and overriding escapeElementEntities method

  XMLOutputter outputter = new XMLOutputter(Format.getPrettyFormat()) {
          @Override
          public String escapeElementEntities(String str) {
              return str;
          }
      };
  Writer writer = new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(file), "utf-8");
  outputter.output(doc, writer);
  writer.close();
  

I found this here

• Setting custom EscapeStrategy on the Format to prevent escaping certain characters

Either way you should be careful to produce a valid XML.

Hope this helps.