Alteryx not opening KML and KMZ files?

Question

Hello,

I'm having trouble getting Alteryx to open a KML file from Govt. of Canada site (https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/720.nsf/vwapj/Map_Data_CSV.zip/$file/Map_Data_CSV.zip) This file contains two KMZ file (same file in English and French versions). By unzipping English version we get the National_Broadband_Internet_Service_Availability_Map.kml file.

Unfortunately I can't seem to get Alteryx to open it. I suspect the punctuation form Quebec cities (i.e. L'Île-Perrot, La Pocatière) has something to do with that. I'm getting the following error with the KML file:

Error: Input Data (1): File Error: XML parsing of KML file failed : not well-formed (invalid token) at line 947, column 14

Zip file is attached. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Mauricio

Map_Data_KMZ.zip

CharlieS · Accepted Answer

Hi @mestevez1

You're absolutely right that there are non-supported characters in the default encoding for kml files in Alteryx. Here's what I found when I opened the .kml in Notepad++ on line 947: ("xE9" is the encoding for "é")

Since you don't have the option to change the encoding when you read a kml file, I used Alteryx to re-encode the text and save it as a new kml file before reading it.

I Input the kml file, but change the format to a text file so you're just importing text. Then save this text as another kml file using Unicode UTF-8 encoding. Now you can read this new file as a kml with all the characters supported.

I've attached the workflow I used to convert the kml text and save a new kml file that works just fine in Alteryx. Let me know if this works for you.