Extraneous nodes like "\n\t\t" when using getFirstChild(), etc.

Question

I have an XML file consisting of:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<config>
     <connection>
          <fromConnString>jdbc:odbc:Conn1</fromConnString>
          <fromUser>user1</fromUser>
          <fromPass>pass1</fromPass>
          <toConnString>jdbc:odbc:Conn2</toConnString>
          <toUser>user2</toUser>
          <toPass>pass2</toPass>
          <fromSchema>schema1</fromSchema>
          <toSchema>schema2</toSchema>
     </connection>
     <conversions>
          <conversion>
               <convertFromFile>C:\clienteleTest\floridaCust.txt</convertFromFile>
               <convertToFile>C:\clienteleTest\eastCust.txt</convertToFile>
               <xrefFile>C:\clienteleTest\custNoMapped.txt</xrefFile>
               <table>
                    <tableName>cy_cust</tableName>
                    <fieldConversions>
                         <fieldConversion>
                              <fieldName>cust_no</fieldName>
                              <fieldValue>C:\clienteleTest\custNoMapped.txt</fieldValue>
                         </fieldConversion>
                         <fieldConversion>
                              <fieldName>UPDATE_TS</fieldName>
                              <fieldValue>CURRENT TIMESTAMP</fieldValue>
                         </fieldConversion>
                    </fieldConversions>
               </table>
          </conversion>
     </conversions>
</config>When I use getNextSibling() or getFirstChild() to move through my list I end up getting lots of nodes that are, apparently, the newlines and tabs that my XML file is formatted with. While debugging I can expand my current node and see 'data="\n\t\t" (id=61)'.
I can loop over the nodes until I get to something I recognize, but is there a way to get rid of these "formatting" nodes before they get to my parsing logic?
Some sample code below:public class XmlSettings
     Document doc = null;
     Connections cons = null;
     ArrayList<Conversion> convs = null;
     public void buildDoc(String filename)
          boolean validate = false;
          DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
          dbf.setValidating(validate);
          dbf.setNamespaceAware(true);
          dbf.setIgnoringElementContentWhitespace(true);
          doc = null;
          try
               DocumentBuilder builder = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
               doc = builder.parse(new File(filename));
               doc.getDocumentElement().normalize();
          catch (SAXException e)
               System.exit(1);
          catch (ParserConfigurationException e)
               System.err.println(e);
               System.exit(1);
          catch (IOException e)
               System.err.println(e);
               System.exit(1);
     public void buildSettings()
          Node currentNode = doc.getFirstChild();
          do
               if (currentNode.getNodeName().equals("config"))
                    currentNode = currentNode.getFirstChild();
               if (currentNode.getNodeName().equals("connection"))
                    cons = new Connections(currentNode);
               else if (currentNode.getNodeName().equals("conversions"))
                    Node convsNode = currentNode.getFirstChild();
                    do
                         Conversion tempConv = new Conversion(convsNode);
                         convs.add(tempConv);
                    while((convsNode = convsNode.getNextSibling()) != null);
          while((currentNode = currentNode.getNextSibling()) != null);
}

Answer 1

Sounds good... I just added some stuff to do that now:                    Node convsNode = currentNode.getFirstChild();
                    while(!convsNode.getNodeName().equals("conversion"))
                         convsNode = convsNode.getNextSibling();
                    }before I try to operate on the "firstChild" node to make sure it's what I'm looking for...