Question

I was trying to parse a collada(.dae) file in java using plane DOM parser. When I try to get value it returns me null. I tried with answers and suggestions from other discussions but was not a success. The code I used is below.

for(int k1=0;k1<meshlist.getLength();k1++) {
    Element geometryItr1 = (Element)geometrylist.item(k);

    NodeList trianglelist = geometryItr1.getElementsByTagName("triangles");

    //System.out.println("Triangles length is " + trianglelist.getLength());     

        for(int o=0;o<trianglelist.getLength();o++) {

            Element trichildnodes = (Element) trianglelist.item(o);
            NodeList inputs = trichildnodes.getElementsByTagName("input");
        NodeList p = trichildnodes.getElementsByTagName("p");
        Element ppp = (Element) p.item(0);
        System.out.println("Node Value " + ppp.getNodeValue());
        System.out.println(inputs.getLength() + "Input length");

        for(int in=0;in<inputs.getLength();in++) {

            Element inn = (Element) inputs.item(in);
            System.out.println(inn.getAttribute("semantic") + " " + inn.getAttribute("source") + " Attributes");

        }


        //System.out.println(p.getLength() +  " P's length" );
        //System.out.println("P's content " + ppp.getFirstChild().getNodeValue());


    }   
}

The XML is very large and I am posting a part which I was trying to parse.

<mesh>
  <source> </source>
  <source> </source>
  <source> </source>
  <triangles>
    <input />
    <input />
    <input />
    <p> 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  </p>
  <triangles>
  <triangles>
    <input />
    <input />
    <input />
    <p> 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  </p>
  <triangles>
  <triangles>
    <input />
    <input />
    <input />
    <p> 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  </p>
  <triangles>
  <triangles>
    <input />
    <input />
    <input />
    <p> 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  </p>
  <triangles>
</mesh>

I was trying to get the value of <p>. Everything works fine except getting p’s value. But when I debug I can see the values, its associated with first child. I even tried using firstChild. I am completely lost with parsing trying to find out a solution on this. Please some one help me find a solution on How to get the value of p ?

When I use getTextContent instead I get the output like below:

NodeValue null
NodeValue 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219
NodeValue null

The output is blank for two tags.

Answer 1

I would recommend using the javax.xml.xpath APIs available in the JDK/JRE since Java SE 5 to make the processing of your XML document easier:

package forum11688757;

import java.io.File;
import javax.xml.parsers.*;
import javax.xml.xpath.*;
import org.w3c.dom.*;

public class Demo {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
        DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
        Document document = db.parse(new File("src/forum11688757/input.xml"));

        XPathFactory xpf = XPathFactory.newInstance();
        XPath xpath = xpf.newXPath();
        NodeList nodeList = (NodeList) xpath.evaluate("/mesh/triangles/p", document, XPathConstants.NODESET);
        for(int x=0; x<nodeList.getLength(); x++) {
            System.out.println(nodeList.item(x).getTextContent());
        }
    }

}

input.xml

<mesh>
  <source> </source>
  <source> </source>
  <source> </source>
  <triangles>
    <input />
    <input />
    <input />
    <p> 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  </p>
  </triangles>
  <triangles>
    <input />
    <input />
    <input />
    <p> 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  </p>
  </triangles>
  <triangles>
    <input />
    <input />
    <input />
    <p> 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  </p>
  </triangles>
  <triangles>
    <input />
    <input />
    <input />
    <p> 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  </p>
  </triangles>
</mesh>

Output

 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  
 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  
 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  
 24 262 2 72 72 72 72 2222 8198219  

UPDATE

You could also get the p elements using the following line of code. You need to be careful though since it will get all p elements not just those in the /mesh/triangles/p path

NodeList nodeList = document.getElementsByTagName("p");

The following approach will always get you the data you are looking for, even if p eleements are later added somewhere else in the document.

NodeList nodeList = (NodeList) xpath.evaluate("/mesh/triangles/p", document, XPathConstants.NODESET);