Java NetBeans Send XML file to Web Service as String - Premature end of file error

I keep getting the following error when trying to send an XML file as a String to a Web Service in order to parse through it and find a term in that file. What is the proper way to send an XML file to a Web Service? The XML file that I am reading into a String is stored in my package and not in Web-Inf. Is that ok?

org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 1; Premature end of file. at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.DOMParser.parse(DOMParser.java:257) at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(DocumentBuilderImpl.java:347)

   String path = "src/java/package/folders/File.xml";

    String fileString = "";
    File f = new File(file);
    try 
    {

        fileString = new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(file)));
        find(fileString, needle);
    } 
    catch (FileNotFoundException e) 
    {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) 
    {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

find() method

private static boolean find(String fileString, java.lang.String needle) 
    {
        util.Utils.client.Reader_Service service = new sc.util.XMLUtils.client.Reader_Service();
        util.Utils.client.Reader port = service.getReaderPort();
        return port.find(filename, needle);
    }

and here's the method called in the Web Service

@WebMethod(operationName = "find")
public boolean find(@WebParam(name = "fileString") String fileString, @WebParam(name = "needle") String needle)
{
    boolean found = false;


    try
    {

        DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
        DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
        InputSource inputSource = new InputSource(new StringReader(fileString));
        InputSource inputSource = new InputSource();
        inputSource.setCharacterStream(new StringReader(bytes));

        Document doc = db.parse(inputSource);
        NodeList nodes = doc.getElementsByTagName("tag");

        for (int i = 0; i < nodes.getLength(); i++) 
        {
            Element element = (Element) nodes.item(i);

            if(element.getAttribute("name").equalsIgnoreCase(needle))
            {
                found = true;
                break;
            }
        }
    }
    catch (Exception exception) 
    {
        exception.printStackTrace();
    }

    return found;
}