Re: [xsl] Tranforming XML document in tomcat...

[Peter Flynn <pflynn@xxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 10:30, Arulraj wrote:
> Hello,
>   I am tranforming XML document to someother text file
> using Xalan in Tomcat 5.0.25 server.
> 
> I got the following error;
> HTTP Status 500 - 
[...]
> root cause 
> 
> javax.xml.transform.TransformerException: Content is
> not allowed in prolog.

It sounds as if you have stray characters in the prolog to your document
instance (the bit at the top, before the root element start-tag). I find
the easiest way to trace this kind of error is to run an external 
stand-alone parser/validator over the document (eg rxp, nsgmls, etc) to 
check well-formedness or validity, because they will give you explicit 
line numbers and error messages. 

Java applications are notorious for giving you a megabyte of trace 
showing where *Java* spat blood, and nothing at all about where in the 
document the error was detected. Java people do themselves a great 
disservice by assuming that it is their Java code that has failed, 
when oftentimes it is the user's document/schema/dtd/stylesheet 
that is at fault.

///Peter