import xml file results in " Unknown or unsupported file format "

[Akshay1]

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:

Trying to import a local xml file, you get the error:

Error parsing data

Unknown or unsupported file format

SOLUTION:

First of all, the xml needs to be "well-formed".

Any easy way to determine if an XML document is well-formed or not is to try and view it in a browser.  For the browser URL, give "file:///full/path/to/test.xml"
If the XML is well-formed, you can view it in the browser (see the attached WellFormedXML.png).
Otherwise, the browser will give you an error.

Examples of NOT well-formed XML:

• An element lacks a closing tag (and is not self-closing).
• Elements overlap without proper nesting: <a><b></a></b>
• An attribute value is missing a closing quote that matches the opening quote
• An attribute value is missing (see the attached screenshot BAD-MissingAttributeValue.png)
• < or & are used in content rather than &lt or &.
• Multiple root elements exist (see the attached screenshot BAD-MultipleRoots.png)
• Multiple XML declarations exist, or an XML declaration appears other than at the top of the document.

If the XML is well-formed but you still get the "Unknown or unsupported file format" error, then check the file's encoding.  You can do this easily, using the "file" utility:

$ file good.xml

good.xml: XML 1.0 document text, ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators

$ file error.xml

error.xml: XML 1.0 document text, UTF-8 Unicode (with BOM) text

Paxata XML import will give the "Unknown or unsupported file format" error if the file is encoded with BOM (byte order mark).  To make the file importable by Paxata, remove the BOMs.

You can do this using the vi editor, using ":set nobomb", or

you can do this using Notepad++, by going to the Encoding menu and selecting "Encode in UTF-8 without BOM"

NOTE that Paxata v2.19.2+ is able to import files with BOMs if the files are imported as .txt files.