Setting node value of self closed tags

Question

Hi all, I was just wondering if anyone knew the answer to this problem, I'm new to this level of java programming and I've been reading documentation till my eyes have started bleeding. When I use the setNodeValue() function on an element, it works fine UNLESS the node is self closed, in which case i cannot access it as it comes up as null. If anyone can give a sample code, or point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it

Answer 1

by "it" i mean the node itself, and by "comes up as", i mean that the value of the node (and data type apparently) is null. Here is the code snippet that i currently have;
NodeList nodeLst = doc.getElementsByTagName(repeatedNode);
for (int s = 0; s < nodeLst.getLength(); s++) {
     Node fstNode = nodeLst.item(s);
     if (fstNode.getNodeType() == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) {
          Element fstElmnt = (Element) fstNode;
          NodeList fstNmElmntLst = fstElmnt.getElementsByTagName("status");
          Element fstNmElmnt = (Element) fstNmElmntLst.item(0);
          Node test = (Node) fstNmElmntLst.item(0);
          if (fstNmElmnt != null){
               NodeList fstNm = fstNmElmnt.getChildNodes();
               if ( ((Node) fstNm.item(0)) != null ){
                    ((Node) fstNm.item(0)).setNodeValue("testing setvalue");
}Notice the checks against null that I have in the code, those are to check against the self closed tages (eg <node />). I realize that there is nothing wrong with xmnl being formatted in this way, I just need to find a way to set values in those nodes. From reading the documentation on setNodeValue() ( [http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/org/w3c/dom/Node.html#setNodeValue(java.lang.String)|http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/org/w3c/dom/Node.html#setNodeValue(java.lang.String)] ), the function cannot be used on a node that is of type null. What I'm trying to figure out is what to use instead yo be able to set the values of those "null" nodes.
Edited by: Billy1234 on Jul 3, 2008 6:01 AM