DOCTYPE declarations must be used within the CDATA section of your XML requests payload

[shyumiha]

I have received the following email on July 14th 2023.

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Dear Developer,

Your immediate attention and action is required.

As of August 14, 2023, DOCTYPE declarations must be used within the CDATA section of your XML requests payload during listing updates. DOCTYPE will not be otherwise allowed in XML request payloads in Trading API. Please follow this practice when using the Item.Description field in Add/Revise/Relist Trading API calls.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact the Developer Technical support.

Sincerely,

eBay Developer Program
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When I create AddFixedPriceItemRequest of XML data, I am using CDATA for <Description> tag like below.

<Description><![CDATA[blah blah blah]]></Description>

Also, I am using this CDATA for many other tags like <Tilte>, <ConditionDescription>, <PictureURL>, etc...

Does anyone know this requirement affects only for <Description> tag?

Does anyone know how to declare or write DOCTYPE for the CDATA for <Description> in XML?

If I don't nothing is done for eBay's requirements this time, will API requests fail after August 14th?

[developer_support@ebay · Accepted solution]

Hi @shyumiha 

This change will not impact your application, if you are not using DOCTYPE. If you uses DOCTYPE, it must be used within the CDATA section of your XML requests payload during listing updates.

[freightfinders]

I am using Trading API JAVA SDK.  it is impossible to put my HTML description with DOCTYPE into a CDATASection.  The Libary the constructs the XML Request is precompiled code that can not be changed.  JAVA AddItem Call only takes description as String.  I have tried to force <![CDATA] to the beginning of String and ]]> to the end but XML gets parsed and symbols end up like this &lt;![CDATA[description[]&gt;  Tried String builder using Literal Chars but did not work.  Even tried this

CDATASection cd =

CDATASection.class.newInstance().getOwnerDocument().createCDATASection(itmdsc);
item.setDescription(cd.toString()); but this broke the application.

any suggesttions on how i can force a CDATASection node to be added

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

[shipscript]

@freightfinders 

The letter is not requiring the addition of a DOCTYPE. It is telling developers to not use DOCTYPE outside of the description. If you do not currently use DOCTYPE, the request does not affect you.

Don't put a DOCTYPE in your description. It is not needed for your type of description, and the browser would probably ignore it if encountered that far down in eBay's description page. eBay displays the description in Quirks mode.

[shyumiha]

Thank you for the reply.

It was really helpful.

Now, I understood clearly about the email message.

[shyumiha]

Thank you for the reply.
It was really helpful.
Now, I understood clearly about the email message.