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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T06:35:02+00:00

I’m using a DocumentBuilder to parse XML files. However, the specification for the project

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I’m using a DocumentBuilder to parse XML files. However, the specification for the project requires that within text nodes, strings like &quot; and &lt; be returned literally, and not decoded as characters (" and <).

A previous similar question, Read escaped quote as escaped quote from xml, received one answer that seems to be specific to Apache, and another that appears to simply not not do what it says it does. I’d love to be proven wrong on either count, however 🙂

For reference, here is some code:

  file = new File(fileName);
  DocBderFac = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
  DocBder = DocBderFac.newDocumentBuilder();
  doc = DocBder.parse(file);

  NodeList textElmntLst = doc.getElementsByTagName(text);
  Element textElmnt = (Element) textElmntLst.item(0);

  NodeList txts = textElmnt.getChildNodes(); 
  String txt = ((Node) txts.item(0)).getNodeValue();
  System.out.println(txt);

I would like that println() to produce things like 

&quot;3&gt;2&quot;

instead of 

"3>2"

which is what currently happens.
Thanks!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Both good answers, but both a little too heavy-weight for this very small-scale application. I ended up going with the total hack of just stripping out all &s (I do this to &s that aren’t part of escapes later anyway). It’s ugly, but it’s working.

    Edit: I understand there’s all kinds of things wrong with this, and that the requirement is stupid. It’s for a school project, all that matters is that it work in one case, and the requirement is not my fault 🙂

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