Why when I create XML document of registry and it founds in registry specified symbols - it cause an error?

Question

I'm creating a XML document of registry keys and parameters on VBScript.

Script is working normal, but if the name of the registry key or registry parameter does contain special symbols, like a /, %, #, \ and other - it causes an error in msxml6.dll:

This name shouldn't contain a symbol
Code of error: 80004005.

in line 8 of this script:

Dim root, len
Dim rootPath
rootPath = Split(WScript.Arguments(0), "\")   'Registry key
len = UBound(rootPath)
root = rootPath(len)
Set xmlParser = CreateObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument.6.0")
xmlParserAappendChild(xmlParser.CreateProcessingInstruction("xml", "version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'"))
Set rootNode = xmlParser.AppendChild(xmlParser.CreateElement(root))
Set CreateXml = xmlParser

I tryed to find it in Google, but it wasn't successful

How can I fix it?

Answer 1

The characters /, %, #, and \ aren't valid characters in an XML node name.

From the XML spec:

[...]
[4]  NameStartChar ::= ":" | [A-Z] | "_" | [a-z] | [#xC0-#xD6] | [#xD8-#xF6] | [#xF8-#x2FF] | [#x370-#x37D] | [#x37F-#x1FFF] | [#x200C-#x200D] | [#x2070-#x218F] | [#x2C00-#x2FEF] | [#x3001-#xD7FF] | [#xF900-#xFDCF] | [#xFDF0-#xFFFD] | [#x10000-#xEFFFF]
[4a] NameChar      ::= NameStartChar | "-" | "." | [0-9] | #xB7 | [#x0300-#x036F] | [#x203F-#x2040]
[5]  Name          ::= NameStartChar (NameChar)*
[...]
[40] STag          ::= '<' Name (S Attribute)* S? '>' [WFC: Unique Att Spec]
[...]

I'd recommend using generic node names (like <key> and <value>) and placinging the key/value names as the value of an attribute name of those nodes. Example:

Set xml = CreateObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument.6.0")
Set node = xml.CreateElement("key")
node.SetAttribute("name") = "foo%bar"