styled markup with embedded ampersand

I'm using Jasper/iReports 3.5.1-nb.

I'm using the 'styled' markup to combine a resource string with a Field, changing the font for the field.  The exact Test field expression is:

$R{product} + ":  <style pdfFontName=\"Cyberbit.ttf\" forecolor=\"#000000\" isPdfEmbedded=\"true\">" + $F{ProductName} +" </style>"

This works fine, unless the Product name contains an embedded ampersand.  Ie (Oats & Grains).   In this case the markup itself displays on the report, and the jasper engine displays an error in the console:

21:04:40,820 FATAL [JRStyledTextParser] Error parsing styled text.
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The entity name must immediately follow the '&' in the entity reference.
        at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.fatalError(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLScanner.reportFatalError(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanEntityReference(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDispatcher.dispatch(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DOMParser.parse(Unknown Source)
        at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(Unknown Source)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.util.JRStyledTextParser.parse(JRStyledTextParser.java:219)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.util.JRStyledTextParser.getStyledText(JRStyledTextParser.java:258)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRFillTextElement.getStyledText(JRFillTextElement.java:955)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRFillTextElement.getText(JRFillTextElement.java:973)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRFillTextField.prepare(JRFillTextField.java:520)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRFillElementContainer.prepareElements(JRFillElementContainer.java:346)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRFillBand.fill(JRFillBand.java:346)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRFillBand.fill(JRFillBand.java:305)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRVerticalFiller.fillColumnBand(JRVerticalFiller.java:1382)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRVerticalFiller.fillGroupHeader(JRVerticalFiller.java:591)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRVerticalFiller.fillGroupHeaders(JRVerticalFiller.java:524)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRVerticalFiller.fillReportStart(JRVerticalFiller.java:253)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRVerticalFiller.fillReport(JRVerticalFiller.java:113)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRBaseFiller.fill(JRBaseFiller.java:899)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRBaseFiller.fill(JRBaseFiller.java:821)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.fill.JRFiller.fillReport(JRFiller.java:89)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperFillManager.fillReport(JasperFillManager.java:628)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperFillManager.fillReport(JasperFillManager.java:544)
        at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperRunManager.runReportToPdfFile(JasperRunManager.java:349)
        at reed.tracom.getsmart.businesslogic.JasperReportsImpl.generatePDFReport(JasperReportsImpl.java:99)
        at reed.tracom.getsmart.businesslogic.SessionReportService.produceStatusReport(SessionReportService.java:939)
        at reed.tracom.getsmart.businesslogic.SystemTaskService.processStatusReports(SystemTaskService.java:1285)
        at reed.tracom.getsmart.businesslogic.SystemTaskService.processSessionTask(SystemTaskService.java:1066)
        at reed.tracom.getsmart.businesslogic.SystemTaskService.processIndividualSystemTask(SystemTaskService.java:983)
        at reed.tracom.spring.controllers.reports.ReportGenerateController.onFormChange(ReportGenerateController.java:258)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.SimpleFormController.processFormSubmission(SimpleFormController.java:262)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.AbstractFormController.handleRequestInternal(AbstractFormController.java:265)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.AbstractController.handleRequest(AbstractController.java:153)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.SimpleControllerHandlerAdapter.handle(SimpleControllerHandlerAdapter.java:48)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:874)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:808)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:476)
        at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doPost(FrameworkServlet.java:441)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:710)
        at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:803)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:290)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
        at org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter.doFilterInternal(CharacterEncodingFilter.java:96)
        at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:75)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:235)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
        at org.jboss.web.tomcat.filters.ReplyHeaderFilter.doFilter(ReplyHeaderFilter.java:96)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:235)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:230)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:175)
        at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.SecurityAssociationValve.invoke(SecurityAssociationValve.java:179)
        at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.JaccContextValve.invoke(JaccContextValve.java:84)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:128)
        at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:104)
        at org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.jca.CachedConnectionValve.invoke(CachedConnectionValve.java:156)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109)
        at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:241)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:844)
        at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:580)
        at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:447)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)

 The data source is an xml file, so that already escapes the ampersand as & amp ; which the parser converts into a literal ampersand during the data conversion stage. Is there a proper way to markup an ampersand so it can output correctly within a styled text block?  It appears that the styled text is being parsed by a 2nd xml parser, which implies that I would have to double-escape and ampersand, is that the case?

Hi,

You say your data source is an XML file which already escapes the ampersand character.

Yes, it does, but it does it for the sake of you being able to parse that XML file and load it as a report data source.

So by the time you use the product name in your expressions, the ampersand is not escaped anymore, so you need to escape it again, because you are writing XML in that styled text field.

I hope this helps.
Teodor

Me too getting the same error when i invoke the report using jboss seam. I didn't get how to solve this issue.

Please let me know the solution.Thanks

Any Body have solution for this.I am using datasource as DB.

Any guess or help.

Gaurav