Why web.xml 'context-param' cannot have character [children]?

Question

I am just curious what happen to this web.xml code where I have this error cvc-complex-type.2.3: Element 'context-param' cannot have character [children], because the type's content type is element-only. in the Eclipse (juno version) Markers view.

Here is the code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app id="WebApp_ID" 
        version="2.5" 
        xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" 
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
        xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd">

  <display-name>Spring security web application (series)</display-name>

  <!-- to specifically stop trouble with multiple apps on tomcat -->
  <context-param>
    <param-name>webAppRootKey</param-name>
    <param-value>customauth_root</param-value>
  </context-param>

  <!-- Location of the XML file that defines the root application context
    applied by ContextLoaderListener. -->
  <context-param>
    <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
    <param-value>
        WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml
        WEB-INF/applicationContext-security.xml
        </param-value>
  </context-param>

  <!-- Loads the root application context of this web app at startup. The
    application context is then available via WebApplicationContextUtils.getWebApplicationContext(servletContext). -->
  <listener>
    <listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
  </listener>

  <listener>
    <listener-class>
      org.springframework.security.web.session.HttpSessionEventPublisher</listener-class>
  </listener>

  <filter>
    <filter-name>springSecurityFilterChain</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.DelegatingFilterProxy</filter-class>
  </filter>

  <filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>springSecurityFilterChain</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
  </filter-mapping>

  <!-- Provides core MVC application controller. See customauth-servlet.xml. -->
  <servlet>
    <servlet-name>customauth</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
  </servlet>

  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>customauth</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.htm</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>

  <servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>customauth</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>*.do</url-pattern>
  </servlet-mapping>

  <welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
  </welcome-file-list>

</web-app>

Answer 1

For starters you are using illegal characters inside your XML node param-value

You are not allowed to use "/", "<" and other chars inside a node as it will break the parsing of the XML document.

You should be using CDATA or PCDATA wrappers around your value inside the XML node.

e.g.

    <param-value><![CDATA[
        WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml
        WEB-INF/applicationContext-security.xml]]>
    </param-value>

This was what was causing your problem.

Answer 2

Some non-visible characters are not considered XML white space, therefore the error is displayed. Display all the white space characters by configuring the Eclipse "Text Editor" preferences, then the rouge characters will stand out. You can also use this tool to validate your XML file:

xmllint --noout --schema http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd XML_FILE