Re: Bug in XPATH() produces invalid XML values and probably un-restorable dumps

Hi

While trying to figure out sensible semantics for XPATH() and scalar-value returning XPath expressions, I've stumbled upon a bug in XPATH() that allows invalid XML values to be produced. This is a serious problem because should such invalid values get inserted into an XML column, an un-restorable dump ensues.

Here's an example (REL9_0_STABLE as of a few days ago)

template1=# SELECT (XPATH('/*/text()', '<root>&lt;</root>'))[1];
xpath
-------
<

Since XPATH() returns XML[], this value has type XML, but clearly isn't well-formed. And behold, casting to TEXT and back to XML complains loudly.

template1=# SELECT (XPATH('/*/text()', '<root>&lt;</root>'))[1]::TEXT::XML;
ERROR: invalid XML content
DETAIL: Entity: line 1: parser error : StartTag: invalid element name
<
^

The culprit is xml_xmlnodetoxmltype() in backend/utils/adt/xml.c. For non-element nodes, it returns the result of xmlXPathCastNodeToString() verbatim, even though that function doesn't reverse the entity replacement that was done during parsing. Adding a call to escape_xml()
for non-element nodes fixes the problem

template1=# SELECT (XPATH('/*/text()', '<root>&lt;</root>'))[1];
xpath
-------
&lt;

Patch is attached.

best regards,
Florian Pflug

On May31, 2011, at 20:50 , Florian Pflug wrote:
> While trying to figure out sensible semantics for XPATH() and scalar-value returning XPath expressions, I've stumbled upon a bug in XPATH() that allows invalid XML values to be produced. This is a serious problem because should such invalid values get inserted into an XML column, an un-restorable dump ensues.
>
> Here's an example (REL9_0_STABLE as of a few days ago)
>
> template1=# SELECT (XPATH('/*/text()', '<root>&lt;</root>'))[1];
> xpath
> -------
> <
>
> ...
>
> Patch is attached.

I've added two tests to the xml regression test which highlight the issue.

Updated patch attached.

best regards,
Florian Pflug