XML parsing and ReportLab combination cause extra single quote in PDF

[vmhe at alumni.princeton.edu]

The below thread is from reportlab-users, but the problem seems to 
stem from my xml parsing. 

Essentially, any XML that I parse and then add to a PDF using 
reportlab is added with an extra apostrophe or single quote before 
it.  Trimming the string using str = str[1:len(str)] removes the 
first character from the string, not the single quote.

Has anyone seen this or know how to fix it?  It is causing much 
anguish.

Many thanks,
Ginger

vmhe @ alumni.princeton.edu


-----------------------------------------

It looks like the problem is being caused by XML parsing - I'm going 
to also post this to xml-sig.

To illustrate the problem I added the following to 
test/test_paragraph.py:

from xml.dom.minidom import parseString

	##PARSE XML
	doc = parseString('<myxml greeting="this is XML"></myxml>')
	tags = doc.getElementsByTagName("myxml")
	for t in tags :
		print t.getAttribute("greeting")
		story.append(
			Paragraph(t.getAttribute("greeting"), 
styNormal))
	doc.unlink()

The resulting pdf has: 
'this is XML
at the bottom, but the output of the program (from print 
t.getAttribute("greeting") ) is:
this is XML

This behavior is not confined to Paragraphs, it seems to be all 
Flowables.

Thanks again for any help.

--- In reportlab-users at y..., Robin Becker <robin at r...> wrote:
> ...
> certainly this shouldn't happen. I just checked some simple examples
> and it isn't happening for me (with the latest source).
> 
> Could it be a problem with style eg a bullet?
> 
> If all else fails can you try changing the test example in
> test/test_paragraphs.py to illustrate your problem? I have just 
checked
> in some minor changes to this at line 110
> 
>         story.append(Paragraph("""This has <font color=blue>blue
> text</font> here.""", styNormal))
>         story.append(Paragraph("""This has <i>italic text</i> 
here.""",
> styNormal))
>         story.append(Paragraph("""This has <b>bold text</b> 
here.""",
> styNormal))
>         story.append(Paragraph("""This has m<super>2</super> a
> superscript.""", styNormal))
>         story.append(Paragraph("""This has m<sub>2</sub> a
> subscript.""", styNormal))
> 
> and this looks abosultely right for me.
> -- 
> Robin Becker
> In article <9dq4ff+fd9l at e...>, vmhe at a... writes

> >hello --
> >
> >We are using ReportLab and have had much success, with one major 
> >exception - before the text in all Paragraphs and before any font 
> >style changes ( < /b > , < /i >, etc.) within a Paragraph, a stray 
> >single quote/apostrophe ( ' ) appears in the PDF.
> >
> >The apostrophe is definitely being inserted by the Paragraph, 
because 
> >debugger output right before the Paragraph is formed shows no 
> >apostrophe.
> >
> >Has anyone seen this?  Have any suggestions? I have been wading 
> >through paragraph.py and can't figure out our problem.
> >
> >thank you,
> >Ginger  
> >
> >vmhe @ alumni.princeton.edu
> >