Question

Is it possible to extract the node name using apache digester?

So, if the xml looks like

   <furniture>
     <sofa>
       .....
     </sofa>
     <coffeeTable>
       .....
     </coffeeTable>
   </furniture>

is it possible to extract the node name “sofa”, “coffeeTable”?

I know it is possible using xpath but is it possible using digester?

Cheers

Answer 1

(original answer)

Create a Digester for pattern "furniture/*" with a simple Rule that takes the second parameter to each call to the begin method and sticks it in a collection of your choice (a list to get all of them, a set to get only all unique names).

(edit)

Scratch that, it’s a bit more complicated.

This works:

public class App 
{
    final static Rule printRule = new Rule() {
        public void begin(String namespace, String name,
                Attributes attributes) throws Exception {
            System.out.println(name);
        }
    }; 
    public static void main( String[] args ) throws IOException, SAXException
    {
        InputStream instr = App.class.getResourceAsStream("/sample.xml");
        Digester dig = new Digester();
        dig.setRules(new RulesBase(){
            public List<Rule> match(String namespaceURI, String pattern) {
                return Arrays.asList(printRule);
            }
        });
        dig.parse(instr);
    }
}

This particular sample will print all element names including the root furniture element. I’ll leave it to you to adjust the match() method to your needs.