AppendChild problem

Question

Hello,
my problem is the following :
I want to update XML nodes and if I don't want to loos its children, I have to create un new node, apped the children of the old node into the new node and update the document.
But I got a problem with the appendChild method:
only one node out of two is added in the new node !
Here is my code :
NodeList nl = oldElt.getChildNodes();
System.out.println(nl.getLength());
for(int i = 0; i < nl.getLength(); i++) {
        System.out.println(i + ":" + nl.item(i));
     //newElt.appendChild(nl.item(i));
        System.out.println(i + ":" + nl.item(i));
}This gives me :
3
0:[Champ: null]
0:[Champ: null]
1:[Champ_0: null]
1:[Champ_0: null]
2:[Champ_1: null]
2:[Champ_1: null]
If I decomment the appendChil line, I have :
3
0:[Champ: null]
0:[Champ: null]
1:[Champ_1: null]
1:[Champ_1: null]
If I put only the System.out line, evrything goed well but if I add the appendChild line, event the System.out line displays one node out of two.
Does anyone have a solution.....?
Thanks.

Answer 1

To quote the JavaDoc for the appendChild method of Node:
Adds the node newChild to the end of the list of children of this node. If the newChild is already in the tree, it is first removed.
So, putting the childNode somewhere else removes it from its current location, which changes the NodeList object's length and the loop ends early.
One solution is to use the cloneNode method to make a new copy of the current node, use that copy in the appendChild method. Then decide how and when to delete the node from its current location. There is a removeChild method for Node that could be used to remove the old node at the end of the loop.
Dave Patterson