Bozo Detection [Universal Feed Parser]
Keywords: RSS, Atom, CDF, XML, feed, parser, Python

# Universal Feed Parser

Parse RSS and Atom feeds in Python. 3000 unit tests. Open source.

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## Bozo Detection

###

Universal Feed Parser can parse feeds whether they are well-formed XML or not. However, since some applications may wish to reject or warn users about non-well-formed feeds, Universal Feed Parser sets the `bozo` bit when it detects that a feed is not well-formed. Thanks to Tim Bray for suggesting this terminology.

### Example: Detecting a non-well-formed feed

    >>> d = feedparser.parse('http://feedparser.org/docs/examples/atom10.xml')
    >>> d.bozo
    0
    >>> d = feedparser.parse('http://feedparser.org/tests/illformed/rss/aaa_illformed.xml')
    >>> d.bozo
    1
    >>> d.bozo_exception
    <xml.sax._exceptions.SAXParseException instance at 0x00BAAA08>
    >>> exc = d.bozo_exception
    >>> exc.getMessage()
    "expected '>'\n"
    >>> exc.getLineNumber()
    6

There are many reasons an XML document could be non-well-formed besides this example (incomplete end tags) See Character Encoding Detection for some other ways to trip the bozo bit.

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