[xsl] Issue with entities in XML document

["Ramkumar Menon" <ramkumar.menon@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi gurus,

I have a question on entities.
The input document to my XSLT contains one element <description>Hansel
&amp; Gretel</description>
After the XSLT transformation, it works fine <outputDescription>Hansel
&amp; Gretel</outputDescription> Perfect.
Once I pass this resulting XML to an custom xpath extension function
that converts this xml to string, the output contains
<outputDescription>Handle &amp;amp; Gretel</outputDescription>
Note the extra amp;
The xpath extension function does nothing but write the xml content
onto a java StringWriter object.
Is it an issue with the serializer ? Or is it an acceptable behaviour?
Any clues on how to prevent the second amp; to appear in the string output ?
i.e. once I write it to a string, the value should be
<outputDescription>Hansel &amp; Gretel</outputDescription>


regards,
Ram


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-Ramkumar Menon
 A typical Macroprocessor