Question

I’ve got this code:

    DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
    DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
    DOMImplementation impl = builder.getDOMImplementation();
    Document xmldoc = impl.createDocument(null, null, null);

    Element root = xmldoc.createElement("root");
    Element textElement = xmldoc.createElement("text");
    Text textNode = xmldoc.createTextNode("");
    root.appendChild(textElement);
    textElement.appendChild(textNode);

    OutputFormat of = new OutputFormat("XML","UTF-8",true);
    of.setIndent(1);
    of.setIndenting(true);

    ByteArrayOutputStream stream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();

    XMLSerializer serializer = new XMLSerializer(stream, of);
    // As a DOM Serializer
    serializer.asDOMSerializer();
    serializer.serialize(root);

    System.out.println(stream.toString());

I get to console this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
    <text/>
</root>

But, I’d like to get this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
    <text></text>
</root>

Does anybody know, how to set the XMLSerializer to avoid Complex Empty Elements?
Thanks.

Answer 1

I had the same problem with XMLSerializer not allowing rendering customization of empty tags. My solution was to extend the original XMLSerializer code and override the serializeElement method:

I have copied the original code and changed the closing printing part:

protected void serializeElement(Element elem) throws IOException
…

if (isSelfClosingElement(elem))
    _printer.printText("/>");
else
_printer.printText("></" + elem.getTagName() + ">");

where isSelfClosingElement holds a list of self closing elements

NOTE: additionally you need to copy the printAttribute() and printNamespaceAttr() method as it is marked private instead of protected.