Parse XML POST data with Rails

Question

I'm using REXML to parse through some XML data sent via POST. The XML is sent correctly formatted with "&" sent as "&". However, when I try to parse it, I had problems like the & becoming & and throwing an error. I fixed with gsub, but now it says #<REXML::ParseException: Missing end tag for 'br'

Anyone have any experience parsing through XML sent via POST on Rails?

def parse
xml = params["xml_data"]

xml = xml.gsub(/&/,"&")

doc, posts = REXML::Document.new(xml), []
end

Answer 1

The problem most likely is that you send html istead of xml and html isn't valid xml - don't try to use regexp or xml processors for its parsing. In your case you likely encountered <br> tag (not <br /> pay attention) - that perfectly ok for html. Try to use Nokogiri gem for html parsing