diff --git a/src/xercesc/framework/LocalFileFormatTarget.cpp b/src/xercesc/framework/LocalFileFormatTarget.cpp
index c695e1b7ddf2aeed6c55879fb3c222eefdda3a0a..70648613513eab711f53f2e429201fe570d514ba 100644
--- a/src/xercesc/framework/LocalFileFormatTarget.cpp
+++ b/src/xercesc/framework/LocalFileFormatTarget.cpp
@@ -57,6 +57,9 @@
 /*
  * $Id$
  * $Log$
+ * Revision 1.4  2003/01/09 20:59:44  tng
+ * [Bug 15928] Output with LocalFileFormatTarget fails silently.
+ *
  * Revision 1.3  2002/11/27 18:09:25  tng
  * [Bug 13447] Performance: Using LocalFileFormatTarget with DOMWriter is very slow.
  *
@@ -71,6 +74,7 @@
 
 #include <xercesc/framework/LocalFileFormatTarget.hpp>
 #include <xercesc/util/PlatformUtils.hpp>
+#include <xercesc/util/IOException.hpp>
 #include <string.h>
 
 XERCES_CPP_NAMESPACE_BEGIN
@@ -83,6 +87,9 @@ LocalFileFormatTarget::LocalFileFormatTarget(const XMLCh* const fileName)
 {
     fSource = XMLPlatformUtils::openFileToWrite(fileName);
 
+    if (!fSource)
+        ThrowXML1(IOException, XMLExcepts::File_CouldNotOpenFile, fileName);
+
     // Buffer is one larger than capacity, to allow for zero term
     fDataBuf = new XMLByte[fCapacity+4];
 
@@ -99,6 +106,9 @@ LocalFileFormatTarget::LocalFileFormatTarget(const char* const fileName)
 {
     fSource = XMLPlatformUtils::openFileToWrite(fileName);
 
+    if (!fSource)
+        ThrowXML1(IOException, XMLExcepts::File_CouldNotOpenFile, fileName);
+
     // Buffer is one larger than capacity, to allow for zero term
     fDataBuf = new XMLByte[fCapacity+4];