[erlang-questions] edoc problem in R11B-3

[Richard Carlsson]

Eric Merritt wrote:
>  I am getting the following error when running edoc.
> 
>  edoc: error in layout 'edoc_layout':
> {'EXIT',{badarg,[{erlang,binary_to_list,[{head,[[10],{title,[[77,111,100|...]]},[10],{link,[{rel,...},{...}|...],[]},[10]]}]},{xmerl_lib,export_text,2},{xmerl_lib,export_text,2},{xmerl,apply_cb,5},{xmerl,export_content,2},{xmerl,export_element,2},{xmerl,export_content,2},{xmerl,export1,3}]}}.
> edoc: error in doclet 'edoc_doclet': {'EXIT',error}.
> 
> edoc seems to always output the above error. It doesn't seem to matter
> what source its run on  or how edoc is called. Is anyone else having a
> similar problem, if so, have you been able to work around it?

The problem is that someone has broken the xmerl_lib:expand_content/4
function, in some misguided attempt to make it accept non-lists as
content, even though the documentation states that content must be flat
lists, and there is even a comment in the code that explains why this
must be so (hint: strings are also lists, and may be deep).

Revert to the previous version of xmerl (or edit expand_content/4 to
match the previous version if you prefer that), and you should be ok.

The following comment in the release notes, made me worried as soon as I
saw it:

OTP-6099  Bug in xmerl removed so that simple syntax element content is
	      exported correctly.

How about reading the spec before deciding to "fix" something?

	/Richard

PS. "Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and 
quick to anger."