[etch-users] etch local_requests + quasi-xml = fail

[Pat O'B. <obr...@gm...>]

collectd appears to have it's config file set up to read "quasi-xml", which
is causing etch to fail when parsing it for a local request:

Local request file
/var/etch/requests/data/svc/collectd/etc/collectd.conf/from_etch is not
valid XML and will be ignored:
#<REXML::ParseException: malformed XML: missing tag start
Line:
Position:
Last 80 unconsumed characters:
<Plugin "tail">   <File "/data/svc/mule/instance01/logs/log4j.log">
Instance >
...

here is what the config bit looks like:

<Plugin "tail">
  <File "/data/svc/app/logs/log4j.log">
    Instance "westcoast"
    <Match>
      Regex "ERROR"
      DSType "CounterInc"
      Type "derive"
      Instance "instance_errors"
    </Match>
  </File>
</Plugin>

Running this through other XML verifiers also verifies that this is not
valid XML. One problem I noticed is that any invalid XML (or XML like file,
including HTML and ERB included) in the local requests directory will cause
etch to bail when slurping in to add the contents to @local_requests.

Initially I thought it was just REXML bailing on loading the local request
and rejecting it, but it looks like it is etch itself which is bailing
(although it's completely possible that REXML would bail in the script
itself as well since REXML validates XML when it loads it).

Any thoughts on where to go from here? Is there an XML tag that allows free
form text and ignores all formatting of data within the tag end and the tag
begin? I'll also dig through collectd and see if I can make the config
proper XML as well.

-pat