Can't pass empty fields

* warning: SimpleXMLElement::__construct()
[simplexmlelement.--construct]: Entity: line 15: parser error :
expected '>' in
/home/devsand/public_html/drupalxml/sites/all/modules/feeds_xpathparser/FeedsXPathParser.inc

on line 465.
    * warning: SimpleXMLElement::__construct()
[simplexmlelement.--construct]: </product_record in /home/devsand/public_html/drupalxml/sites/all/modules/feeds_xpathparser/FeedsXPathParser.inc
on line 465.
    * warning: SimpleXMLElement::__construct()
[simplexmlelement.--construct]: ^ in
/home/devsand/public_html/drupalxml/sites/all/modules/feeds_xpathparser/FeedsXPathParser.inc
on line 465.
    * String could not be parsed as XML

Hey guys minor problem, trying to do some exploratory tests to see if we can switch from our current CMS over to Drupal. I have a bunch of XML files I am trying to parse however at times there are empty fields within the xml and I think this is causing the error above. As much as I would love to fix the xml files that is out of my hands as they are provided by a third party, does anyone know how to get the parser to just skip over empty fields?

thanks