MS XML Parser error in CData section

[!NoItAll]

The MSXML parser is choking on a single character that often appears in my data within a CDATA section.

Try this:

Dim bRet As Boolean
Dim lRet as long 
Dim xmlDoc As MSXML2.DOMDocument
Set xmlDoc = New MSXML2.DOMDocument
 
bRet = xmlDoc.Load("d:\test.xml")
 
lRet = xmlDoc.parseError.filepos   'returns the position of the A9 (copyright symbol)
 
 

The file I'm loading looks like this:

<NRCS_2NEWARC RECORDNUMBER= "1844">
<TreeStructure Data="19930121"/>
<![CDATA[NEWSS © 1993 All Rights Reserved ]]>
</NRCS_2NEWARC>

Which I saved as d:\test.xml. See the A9 (copyright symbol) inside the CData section - MSXML chokes on it every time - If I remove the copyright symbol everything works as expected. Why? I thought a CDATA section was supposed to be passed intact! The only thing you're not supposed to put into a CDATA section is ]]> which terminates it.
This is frustrating!
I've tried it with MSXML 4, 5, and 6.

[!NoItAll]

ok - I see the problem. That character, standing alone, makes for improper UTF8, which XML is expecting. The correct thing to do is make sure I convert the data to UTF8 first - but that seems stupid to me. Again - I thought CDATA was supposed to go completely uninterpreted so you could put any old garbage in there. Apparently not - it has to be proper garbage....