Locating XML Nodes in a stream

Question

How can I get the exact location of a Node within an XML document so i can apply some attributes i.e color for display purposes by streaming the document .
I have looked into javax.xml.transform.SourceLocator. But its Get methods are intended only as an approximation for the sake of error reporting; it is not intended to provide sufficient information to edit the character content of the original XML document.
Please help.

Answer 1

You'll have to parse the entire document to determine its contents. A DTD or schema is typically referenced in the XML document, outlining the heirarchy and dependencies between XML attributes and elements.
You may want to consider using DOM parsing rather than SAX parsing. With DOM parsing, you create a parse tree of the entire XML document. This parse tree is then held in memory, allowing you to access it when you need it. Once you have determined the root node of the XML document, then you can use the Node.getFirstChild() to "climb down" through the tree. Subsequently, you can use Node.getNextSibling() to get the "next branch" in the tree. You may want to read up on the following classes:
     org.w3c.dom.Document
     org.w3c.dom.Node
     org.w3c.dom.ElementHere is some code to get the root element from a URL or InputStream:
* Returns the "root" or base element contained in an input stream
* returned from the specified URL.
* @param xmlUrl
* @return Element the root element
private Element getRootElementFromURL(URL xmlUrl) {
     BufferedInputStream bufferedStream;
     Element rootElement;
     try {
          // get the input stream from the URL
          bufferedStream = new BufferedInputStream(xmlUrl.openConnection().getInputStream());                         rootElement = getRootElementFromInputStream(bufferedStream);               } catch (Exception e) {                    throw new AuthenticationException(e);               }               return rootElement;          }                    /**           * Returns the "root" or base element contained in an input stream.           * @param input           * @return Element the root element           * @throws AuthenticationException           */                    private Element getRootElementFromInputStream(InputStream input)                throws AuthenticationException {               Document document;                         try {                                        // get the XML document from the input stream                    DocumentBuilderFactory docFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();                    DocumentBuilder docBuilder = docFactory.newDocumentBuilder();                    document = docBuilder.parse(input);               } catch (Exception e) {                    throw new AuthenticationException("A problem occured while " +                               "processing the response from the authentication server.", e);               }               return document.getDocumentElement();          }
          rootElement = getRootElementFromInputStream(bufferedStream);
     } catch (Exception e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
     return rootElement;
* Returns the "root" or base element contained in an input stream.
* @param input
* @return Element the root element
private Element getRootElementFromInputStream(InputStream input) {
     Document document;
     try {
          // get the XML document from the input stream
          DocumentBuilderFactory docFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
          DocumentBuilder docBuilder = docFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
          document = docBuilder.parse(input);
     } catch (Exception e) {
          e.printStackTrace();
     return document.getDocumentElement();