How to read xml file that has changing element names?

Question

Idon't know much about xml, nor reading it with java, but I have this problem with reading xml file. The file something like this:
<configuration>
   <DEV001>
      <serial>001</serial>
      <id>number 1</id>
   </DEV001>
   <DEV002>
      <serial>002</serial>
      <id>number 2</id>
   </DEV002>
</configuration>I have imported the org.w3c.dom.* api, that I use for parsing. I don't know is this a generic or a parser specific issue, but how can I get all the nodes starting with "DEV" into a NodeList?
If you know a solution for this with another parser, please share it. I have no reason to use that specific parser, I just found a sample using that.
kari-matti

Answer 1

Well, NodeList is an interface, so you cannot construct one and put the "good" elements into it. But, you might be able to cast the NodeList with all of the children of the root into an IIOMetadaNode (which is the class that implements the NodeList interface. That class has a removeChild() method that might be able to remove the text nodes and any that don't start with DEV.
But, if you remove nodes, and still want to do things with the full DOM Document, be very careful and run tests. It may remove those nodes from the full Document.
If, on the other hand, the printingData( Nodelist nl) method could be modified so it takes an ArrayList or some other collection, it is very simple.
Just create an ArrayList, and when you find an element starting with DEV, add it to the ArrayList. When you are done, process that list and you are finished.
Dave Patterson