XML to CSV using SAX Parser

Question

Hello
I need to convert xml files to csv format using SAX Parser. The following code & outputs are as below:
XML file:
<Library>
<Book>
     <Title>Professional JINI</Title>
     <Author>bs</Author>
     <Publisher>Oreilly Publications</Publisher>
</Book>
<Book>
     <Title>XML Programming</Title>
     <Author>java</Author>
     <Publisher>Mann Publications</Publisher>
</Book>
</Library>
public class BooksLibrary extends DefaultHandler
protected static final String XML_FILE_NAME = "C:\\library1.xml";
     public static void main (String argv [])
          // Use the default (non-validating) parser
          SAXParserFactory factory = SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
          try {
               FileOutputStream fos=new FileOutputStream("C:/test.txt");
               // Set up output stream
               out = new OutputStreamWriter (fos, "UTF8");
               // Parse the input
               SAXParser saxParser = factory.newSAXParser();
               saxParser.parse( new File(XML_FILE_NAME), new BooksLibrary() );
          } catch (Throwable t) {
               t.printStackTrace ();
          System.exit (0);
     static private Writer out;
     //===========================================================
     // Methods in SAX DocumentHandler
     //===========================================================
     public void startDocument ()
     throws SAXException
          showData ("<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>");
          newLine();
     public void endDocument ()
     throws SAXException
          try {
               newLine();
               out.flush ();
          } catch (IOException e) {
               throw new SAXException ("I/O error", e);
     public void startElement (String name, Attributes attrs)
     throws SAXException
          showData ("<"+name);
          if (attrs != null) {
               for (int i = 0; i < attrs.getLength (); i++) {
                    showData (" ");
                    showData (attrs.getLocalName(i)+"=\""+attrs.getValue (i)+"\"");
          showData (">");
     public void endElement (String name)
     throws SAXException
          showData ("</"+name+">");
     public void characters (char buf [], int offset, int len)
     throws SAXException
          String s = new String(buf, offset, len);
          showData (s);
     //===========================================================
     // Helpers Methods
     //===========================================================
     // Wrap I/O exceptions in SAX exceptions, to
     // suit handler signature requirements
     private void showData (String s)
     throws SAXException
          try {
               out.write (s);
               out.flush ();
          } catch (IOException e) {
               throw new SAXException ("I/O error", e);
     // Start a new line
     private void newLine ()
     throws SAXException
          //String lineEnd = System.getProperty("line.separator");
          try {
               out.write (", ");
          } catch (IOException e) {
               throw new SAXException ("I/O error", e);
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------output is as follows:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>,
     Professional JINI
     bs
     Oreilly Publications
     XML Programming
     java
     Mann Publications
Can anyone please tell me how to remove that indentation space & get the output as :
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>, Professional JINI, bs, Oreilly Publications, XML Programming, java, Mann Publications
Thanks

Answer 1

By the way, there is a new feature in Java 5.0 (Tiger) called "Annotations."
Since your code extneds DefaultHandler, you could specify a line with
@Override
before the definition of each of your methods. If you had used these, the compiler would have given an error since your methods did not override the methods of DefaultHandler.
(If your code implemented ContentHandler, by contrast, using @Override is invalid because you need to implement all of the methods defined in the interface definition.)
The other comment is that the safest way to handle characters() data is to use a StringBuilder/Buffer (StringBuilder is only valid in 5.0, StringBuffer has been around since Release 1.0) that you define in the startElement method. Use the append method to gather data presented to you in the characters() method and use toString() to harvest the data in the endElement method.
Dave Patterson