The ORA-31011: XML parsing failed error, along with LPX-00216: invalid character 231 (0xE7)

ORA-31011: XML parsing failed 
ORA-19202: Error occurred in XML processing 
LPX-00216: invalid character 231 (0xE7) Error at line 3108

The ORA-31011: XML parsing failed error, along with LPX-00216: invalid character 231 (0xE7), indicates that Oracle encountered an invalid or unsupported character while parsing an XML document. This could be due to:

1. Invalid Character in XML → The XML contains a character that is not allowed in its encoding (e.g., ç (0xE7) in a non-UTF-8 document).
2. Wrong Character Encoding → The XML is encoded in one format (e.g., ISO-8859-1), but Oracle is expecting UTF-8.
3. Corrupted Data → The XML file contains special or non-printable characters that Oracle can't process.

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🔹 Steps to Fix the Issue

✅ 1️⃣ Check the Encoding of Your XML File

Run the following query to detect the encoding:

SELECT EXTRACTVALUE(XMLTYPE('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root></root>'), '/root') FROM DUAL;

If the XML encoding does not match Oracle's expectation, update it.

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✅ 2️⃣ Verify the XML Encoding Declaration

Ensure that your XML file starts with a valid encoding declaration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

If the encoding is missing or incorrect, fix it.

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✅ 3️⃣ Remove Invalid Characters Before Parsing

You can clean the XML using TRANSLATE() or REGEXP_REPLACE():

SELECT REGEXP_REPLACE(xml_data, '[^\x20-\x7E]', '') FROM xml_table;

🔹 This removes non-ASCII characters that might be causing issues.

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✅ 4️⃣ Handle the XML Using DBMS_XMLGEN.CONVERT()

SELECT DBMS_XMLGEN.CONVERT(xml_column, DBMS_XMLGEN.ENTITY_ENCODE) FROM xml_table;

🔹 This encodes special characters properly before parsing.

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✅ 5️⃣ Use TRY/CATCH Block for Debugging

If you are inserting XML into a table, wrap it in an exception handling block:

BEGIN
    INSERT INTO xml_table (xml_data)
    VALUES (XMLTYPE(:xml_value));
EXCEPTION
    WHEN OTHERS THEN
        DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Error: ' || SQLERRM);
END;
/

🔹 This helps identify exactly where the issue occurs.

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🔹 Next Steps

• Check your XML encoding and update it to UTF-8 if necessary.
• Remove or replace invalid characters from your XML using SQL functions.
• Use DBMS_XMLGEN.CONVERT() to sanitize XML before processing.
• If using external XML files, check their encoding using a text editor like Notepad++ or VS Code.