XML malformed but i don't know why

Question

I have the following XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<results>
<ip>195.72.186.157</ip>
<country>UNITED KINGDOM (UK)</country>
<city>Oxford</city>
<latitude>51.75</latitude>
<longitude>-1.25</longitude>
<staticmap>http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=51.75,-1.25&sensor=false&zoom=13&size=500x300</staticmap>
<dynamicmap>http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=51.75,-1.25&amp;sll=52.7115,-2.0006&amp;sspn=0.07831,0.264187&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;ll=51.75,-1.25&amp;spn=0.048204,0.132093&amp;z=14&amp;output=embed</dynamicmap>
</results>

The problem is it is coming up as malformed when I validate it. The character in question that it doesn't like is an equals sign. What is its problem with it? I validated it here:

http://www.w3schools.com/dom/dom_validate.asp

Answer 1

You're missing an amp; next to the sensor parameter in the staticmap element. In fact, you need to encode all ampersands in that element value.

Answer 2

Your need to encode your ampersands in the Google Maps URL, ie

<staticmap>http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=51.75,-1.25&amp;sensor=false&amp;zoom=13&amp;size=500x300</staticmap>

You did it for the <dynamicmap> , but not the <staticmap>

Answer 3

those charackters are reserved in xml. you can either replace them with their charcode equivalents (using &#NNN;) or wrap the urls in a CDATA section