xslt parsing xml data with '<' invalid character

[qbp90x5lb]

I'm using an XSLT transform to output the element value contents from a simple XML file into a new .TXT file. Everything works fine except for certain XML files, when calling msxsl with the .xslt, I get the following error:

Code: 0xc00ce504
File: ......
Line: ...
Column: ...
A name was started with an invalid character.

The error refers to the '<' found in the string "<20" from my example xml file below (a).

Questions:
(1) Will a docbase/entity solution within my xslt script avoid the "invalid character" error while retaining the '<' in the output .TXT file?
(2) If so, could a forum member modify my example xslt script (b) with the required code?
(3) If neither of the above will work, does someone know how to code a .bat replace of '"<' with '"&lt' (I manually did this replacement and the msxsl call works fine but I'd like to automate this in .bat)?

Below is my project summary:

I have a very basic xml file with the sole element value containing a lot of text data (subset example for <TEST> values):

(a)

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<TEST>
"abcdefgh", "1"
"abcdefgh", "1"
"abcdefgh", "1"
"abcdefgh", "1"
 
"zzzzzz","yyyyy","xxxx","<20"
"zzzzzz","yyyyy","xxxx","40"
"zzzzzz","yyyyy","xxxx","<20"
</TEST>

Below is the xslt I'm using to create a .txt file from the <TEST> value:
(note that I'm actually using some xpath function for another purpose but to be relevant to my questions above I added <xsl:value-of select="."> to the example below)

(b)

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="text" encoding="US-ASCII"/>
  <xsl:template match="@*|node()">
     <xsl:copy>
         <xsl:apply-templates select="@*|node()"/>
     </xsl:copy>
   </xsl:template>
  <xsl:template match="TEST">
     <xsl:copy-of select="@*"/>
     <xsl:value-of select="."></xsl:value-of>
     <xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>
   </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Below is the batch script that calls msxsl:

(c)

------begin .bat-----
for /D %%k in ( C:\test\z\* ) do call :build %%~nk
 
:build
set _dr=%1
for %%y in ( C:\test\z\*.xml ) do call :build2 %%y
 
goto :eof
 
:build2
set _file2=%~pnx1
set _outputtxt=%~pn1.txt
msxsl %_file2% TEST.xslt -o %_outputtxt%
 
:eof
------end .bat-----

Thanks,
h_q

[jkmyoung]

There's nothing wrong with the rest of the code, just the 'xml'. Is it possible to change the service sending the incoming data so that it is xml? eg escape < as &lt;

If not, I wish you good luck with your script. I suggest using something like perl or php to escape the proper portions of your document.