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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-31T23:22:54+00:00

I’m learning Jsoup and have this HTML: […] <p style=…> <!– div 1 –>

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I’m learning Jsoup and have this HTML:

 [...]
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 1 -->
   Content
 </p>
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 2 -->
   Content
 </p>
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 3 -->
   Content
 </p>
 [...]

I use Jsoup.parse() and document select(“p”) for catch “content” (and works nice). But…

 [...]
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 1 -->
   Content
 </p>
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 2 -->
   Content
 </p>
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 3 -->
   Content
   <p style="..."></p>
   <p style="..."></p>
 </p>
 [...]

In this scene, I see that Jsoup.parse() convert this code to:

 [...]
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 1 -->
   Content
 </p>
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 2 -->
   Content
 </p>
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 3 -->
   Content
 </p>
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 4 -->
 </p>
 <p style="..."> <!-- div 5 -->
 </p>
 [...]

How can I keep order of nested paragraphs with Jsoup (div 4 & 5 inside of div 3)?

Add a example:

HTML file:

 <html>
 <head>
    <title>Title</title>
 </head>
 <body>
    <p style="margin-left:2em">
            <span class="one">Text</span>
            <span class="two"><span class="nest">Text</span></span>
            <span class="three"></span>
    </p>
    <p style="margin-left:2em">
            <span class="one">Text</span>
            <span class="two"><span class="nest">Text</span></span>
            <span class="three"></span>
    </p>
    <p style="margin-left:2em">
            <span class="one">Text</span>
            <span class="two"><span class="nest">Text</span></span>
            <span class="three"></span>
            <p style="margin-left:2em"></p>
            <p style="margin-left:2em"></p>
    </p>

 </body>
 </html>

Java code:

Document doc = null;
doc = Jsoup.connect(URL_with_HTML).get();
System.out.println(doc.outerHtml());

Return:

<html>
<head> 
 <title>Title</title> 
</head> 
<body> 
 <p style="margin-left:2em"> <span class="one">Text</span> <span class="two"><span class="nest">Text</span></span> <span class="three"></span> </p> 
 <p style="margin-left:2em"> <span class="one">Text</span> <span class="two"><span class="nest">Text</span></span> <span class="three"></span> </p> 
 <p style="margin-left:2em"> <span class="one">Text</span> <span class="two"><span class="nest">Text</span></span> <span class="three"></span> </p>
 <p style="margin-left:2em"></p> 
 <p style="margin-left:2em"></p> 
 <p></p>   
</body>
</html>

Is correct this? I using Jsoup 1.6.1. I understand that Jsoup should return nested paragraphs instead of previous return.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Nested paragraphs do not exist in HTML. The prior paragraph is closed automatically since Jsoup implements the WHATWG HTML5 specification:

    1. A p tag is automatically closed by any of the following: address, article, aside, blockquote, div, dl, fieldset, footer, form, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, header, hgroup, hr, main, menu, nav, ol, p, pre, section, table, or ul. Therefore <p><div></div> becomes <p></p><div></div>.
    2. An end tag whose name is p (ie </p>) that does not have a corresponding start tag is a parse error and is replaced with <p>. Therefore <span></span></p> becomes <span></span><p>.

    So jsoup is correct and your HTML is invalid.

    Be sure to comprehend that your HTML is invalid because you have too many </p> and not because “nesting” paragraphs. Nesting cannot happend because they get auto-closed. But the later coming </p> is obsolet because the “corresponding” <p> was already auto-closed before.

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