Sitemap with XML escaping and percent-encoding
A sitemap of URLs that need both layers of escaping the format demands: ampersands written as XML entities and reserved characters percent-encoded, plus a punycode host. For testing that a parser unescapes exactly once and does not double-decode.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://www.example.com/search?q=boots&sort=price&page=2</loc>
<lastmod>2026-01-01</lastmod>
</url>
<url>
<loc>https://www.example.com/catalog/caf%C3%A9-collection</loc>
<lastmod>2026-01-01</lastmod>
</url>
<url>
<loc>https://www.example.com/catalog/size%20guide</loc>
</url>
<url>
<loc>https://www.example.com/quotes/it%27s-a-sample</loc>
</url>
<url>
<loc>https://www.example.com/compare?a=1&b=2&label=%3Cbeta%3E</loc>
</url>
<url>
<loc>https://xn--exmple-cua.example.com/</loc>
</url>
</urlset>
Specifications
- Seed
- 70400
- Site
- example.com (fictional)
- Format
- urlset 0.9
- Urls
- 6
- Escaped Ampersands
- 4
- Percent Encoded
- 4
- Idn
- 1
Testing contract
Expected to pass- Scenario
- Extract the six loc values and compare them to the intended URLs.
- Expected result
- & unescapes to a single & and is not re-decoded; %C3%A9, %20, %27 and %3C stay percent-encoded in the URL; the xn-- host is preserved rather than normalised away.
What is a .xml file?
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a verbose, self-describing markup language using nested tags, attributes, and namespaces to represent structured, hierarchical data. It supports schemas, entities, and validation and underlies many document and data formats. It remains common in enterprise, publishing, and interchange contexts.
How to use this file
Use an example XML file to test parsers, namespace and schema validation, XPath queries, and protection against entity-expansion and external-entity attacks.
How to use this file for testing
“Sitemap with XML escaping and percent-encoding” is a deterministic Novus Examples fixture for Web assets, Web scraping, Editor testing. Favicons, web app manifests, service workers, robots and sitemap files, Open Graph images, and .well-known resources — for testing web tooling, crawlers, PWA installers, and asset pipelines.
Documented properties for this file: seed 70400 · urlset 0.9. Compare results against paired or grouped companions on this page when present (clean↔damaged, searchable↔scanned, or format twins) so scores stay reproducible across runs.
Download the file once, keep the path stable in CI or local scripts, and treat the spec table as the contract: dimensions, seeds, field lists, and roles are intentional. Corrupt or invalid samples are labelled as such — expect parsers to fail loudly rather than silently accept them.
Web-platform fixtures are standards-compliant samples against fictional example.com data. Test crawlers, PWA installers and manifest validators, favicon/icon pipelines, service-worker registration, or .well-known parsers against the documented structure.
Code examples
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
tree = ET.parse("sitemap-escaping.xml")
root = tree.getroot()
print(root.tag, [c.tag for c in root][:5])Related files
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