Why do I get this XML parsing error?

Support & Bugs
1

Hello,

I’m using Piwik for the first time and want to integrate into my app via the API. I have everything setup and running and have made some successful calls to the API.

When I make the following call, I get XML Parsing Error: not well-formed. It doesn’t like the date being the node name. How can I fix this?

Request: https://piwik.mydomain.com/?token_auth=XXXXXXXXXXX&module=API&method=API.getBulkRequest&format=xml&urls[0]=method=VisitsSummary.get&idSite=all&period=day&date=2013-11-07,2013-11-14&filter_sort_order=asc

Thanks for any help.

2

if you only have one API, you don’t need to use getBulkRequest instead you can get XML link from: Piwik > API (top menu link) >

3

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the response. I’m aware that bulk api is used for multiple queries, however, the following will give the same error:

Request: https://piwik.mydomain.com/?token_auth=XXXXXXXXXXX&module=API&method=API.getBulkRequest&format=xml&urls[0]=method=VisitsSummary.get&idSite=all&period=day&date=2013-11-07,2013-11-14&filter_sort_order=asc&urls[1]=method=VisitsSummary.get&idSite=all&period=day&date=2013-11-01,2013-11-07&filter_sort_order=asc

Aside from the question, I wrote a wrapper for my programming language and it uses a global method to send and parse the response into strongly typed objects. In my wrapper, you submit your list of queries, hence why the getBulkRequest was used. Do you have a recommendation or good reason to not use getBulkRequest with only one query?

4

Also, I noticed the XML is returned and I can see it by viewing the source of the page. Even though the page shows this error:

This page contains the following errors:
error on line 5 at column 5: StartTag: invalid element name
Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error

If I view the source, this is what I see:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <2013-11-14> 125 318 5 11 25450 0% 28.9 2314 <2013-11-15> 8 11 2 2 592 0% 5.5 296 <2013-11-14> <2013-11-15>
5

there is indeed a bug iin the bulk XML format.

can you use the JSON format instead? this one should work

6

Hi Matt,

The json format does indeed work. However, I prefer to work with xml as I find it more pleasurable, especially when using server side languages. I decided to take a look at the source and found that I needed to change the “renderArray($array, $prefixLines)” function inside of the xml data table renderer class and comment out the following lines:

//if (is_numeric($key)) {
$prefix = “<row key=”$key">";
$suffix = “”;
$emptyNode = “<row key=”$key"/>";
//} else {
//$prefix = “<$key>”;
//$suffix = “</$key>”;
//$emptyNode = “<$key />”;
//}

This change results in valid xml and I do not see any side effects to this modification, except for I have to read the key attributes instead of the name, but as far as functionality, it seems to work. Please let me know if you do.

7

Thank you for the report & patch. I fixed it in API Bulk Requests: invalid output when multiple dates and format is xml · Issue #4313 · matomo-org/matomo · GitHub

Cheers