XML reading in java

Question

hi,
i have an XML of the form as below
<Ingredients>
<h1>VINAIGRETTE</h1>
<Ingredient>3 tablespoons Dijon or grainy mustard</Ingredient>
<Ingredient>3 tablespoons sherry or white wine vinegar</Ingredient>
<Ingredient>2 tablespoons honey</Ingredient>
<Ingredient>6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil</Ingredient>
<Ingredient>Salt and pepper, to taste</Ingredient>
<h1>SALAD</h1>
<Ingredient>2 heads radicchio, coarsely chopped</Ingredient>
<Ingredient>4 heads endive, coarsely chopped</Ingredient>
<Ingredient>1 bunch escarole, coarsely chopped</Ingredient>
<Ingredient>1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, shredded</Ingredient>
<Ingredient>1/4 cup minced fresh dill</Ingredient>
<Ingredient>1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves</Ingredient>
</Ingredients>
how do i fetch the data after h1(VINAIGRETTE) seperately and the data after h1(SALAD) seperately.

Answer 1

If possible, the XML should be refactored to be a litle more well-formed, such as:
<recipes>
    <recipe>
        <name>Vinaigrette</name>
        <ingredients>
            <ingredient>3 tbsp dijon ...</ingredient>
            <ingredient>3 tbsp sherry ...<ingredient>
            <!-- ... -->
        </ingredients>
    </recipe>
    <recipe>
        <name>Salad</name>
        <ingredients>
            <ingredient>2 heads radicchio ...</ingredient>
            <ingredient>4 heads endive ...</ingredient>
            <!-- ... -->
        </ingredients>
    </recipe>
    <!-- ... -->
</recipes>Such a refactoring would 1) make parsing easier; and 2) allow a more concise/rigid schema. Parsing the XML you have would be a matter of getting every element and checking the name of each one to know when to stop:
NodeList nodes = rootElement.getChildNodes();
List recipes = new ArrayList();
Recipe currentRecipe = null;
for(int i = 0, iLen = nodes.getLength(); i < iLen; i++) {
   Node node = nodes.item(i);
   StringBuffer textValue = new StringBuffer();
   NodeList textNodes = node.getChildNodes();
   for(int j = 0, jLen = textNodes.getLength(); j < jLen; j++) {
      Node textNode = textNodes.item(j);
      if(textNode.getNodeType() == Node.TEXT_NODE) {
         textValue.append(textNode.getValue());
   if("h1".equals(node.getName()) {
      currentRecipe = new Recipe();
      currentRecipe.setName(textValue.toString());
      recipes.add(currentRecipe);
   } else if("Ingredient".equals(node.getName()) && (currentRecipe != null)) {
      currentRecipe.getIngredients().add(textValue.toString());
}It's a bit of a mess, and becomes more convoluted as more elements are added. Using the schema I mentioned above, you end up with a simple set of XPath expressions:
XPathFactory factory = XPathFactory.newInstance();
XPath xpath = factory.newXPath();
NodeList recipes = (NodeList)xpath.evaluate(document, "recipe", XPathConstants.NODESET);
List recipes = new ArrayList();
for(int i = 0, iLen = recipes.getLength(); i < iLen; i++) {
   Node recipeNode = recipes.item(i);
   Recipe recipe = new Recipe();
   recipe.setName((String)xpath.evaluate(recipeNode, "name", XPathConstants.STRING));
   NodeList ingredientNodes = (NodeList)xpath.evaluate(recipeNode, "ingredients/ingredient", NODESET);
   for(j = 0, jLen = ingredientNodes.getLength(); j < jLen; j++) {
      Node ingredientNode = ingredientNodes.item(j);
      recipe.getIngredients().add(xpath.evaluate(ingredientNode, ".", XPathConstants.STRING));
}Not much better, but less ambiguous.