Question

My xml file is look like this . I want to get the value node text content as like this .

<property regex=".*" xpath=".*">
     <value>
          127.0.0.1
     </value>
<property regex=".*" xpath=".*">
<value>

</value>
</property>

I want to get text as order they specified in a file . Here is my java code .

Document doc = parseDocument("properties.xml");
NodeList properties = doc.getElementsByTagName("property");
for( int i = 0 , len = properties.getLength() ; i < len ; i++) {
     Element property = (Element)properties.item(i);
     //How can i proceed further .
}

Output Expected :

 Node 1 : 127.0.0.1

Please suggest your views .

Answer 1

The following method looks for all property elements within the document and collects all value children of those elements named value wihtout using XPath.

  private static List<Element> getValueElements(Document document) {
    List<Element> result = new ArrayList<Element>();
    NodeList propertyElements = document.getElementsByTagName("property");
    for (int i = 0, ilen = propertyElements.getLength(); i < ilen; i++) {
      Node propertyNode = propertyElements.item(i);
      if (!(propertyNode instanceof Element))
        continue;

      NodeList children = ((Element) propertyNode).getChildNodes();
      for (int j = 0, jlen = children.getLength(); j < jlen; j++) {
        Node child = children.item(j);
        if (!(child instanceof Element) || !"value".equals(child.getNodeName()))
          continue;

        result.add((Element) child);
      }
    }
    return result;
  }

But you can do the same in a more elegant way using the XPath expression //property/value:

private static List<Element> getValueElementsUsingXpath(Document document) throws XPathExpressionException {
  XPath xpath = XPathFactory.newInstance().newXPath();
  // XPath Query for showing all nodes value
  XPathExpression expr = xpath.compile("//property/value");
  Object xpathResult = expr.evaluate(document, XPathConstants.NODESET);

  List<Element> result = new ArrayList<Element>();
  NodeList nodes = (NodeList) xpathResult;
  for (int i = 0; i < nodes.getLength(); i++) {
    Node valueNode = nodes.item(i);
    if (!(valueNode instanceof Element)) continue;
    result.add((Element) valueNode);
  }

  return result;
}

You can use the method above like this:

  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    Document doc = parseDocument("properties.xml");
    List<Element> valueElements = getValueElements(doc);  // or getValueElementsUsingXpath(doc)

    int nodeNumber = 0;
    for (Element element : valueElements) {
      nodeNumber++;
      System.out.println("Node " + nodeNumber + ": " + formatValueElement(element));
    }
  }

  private static String formatValueElement(Element element) {
    StringBuffer result = new StringBuffer();

    boolean first = true;
    NodeList children = ((Element) element).getChildNodes();
    for (int i = 0, len = children.getLength(); i < len; i++) {
      Node child = children.item(i);

      String childText = null;
      switch (child.getNodeType()) {
      case Node.CDATA_SECTION_NODE:
      case Node.TEXT_NODE:
        childText = child.getTextContent().trim();
      }

      if (childText == null || childText.isEmpty()) {
        continue;
      }

      if (first)
        first = false;
      else
        result.append(" ");

      result.append(childText);
    }

    return result.toString();
  }

I tested it with the following two XML inputs, since your XML lacks a closing </property> tag.

Here is the first one (I added extra elements, to show that they are not found):

  <rootNode>
  <property regex=".*" xpath=".*">
       <value>
            127.0.0.1
       </value>
       <anythingElse>Text here</anythingElse>
  </property>
  <anythingElse>Text here</anythingElse>
  <property regex=".*" xpath=".*">
  <value>
       val <![CDATA[
       <Valve className="org.tomcat.AccessLogValve" exclude="PASSWORD,pwd,pWord,ticket" enabled="true" serviceName="zohocrm" logDir="../logs" fileName="access" format="URI,&quot;PARAM&quot;,&quot;REFERRER&quot;,TIME_TAKEN,BYTES_OUT,STATUS,TIMESTAMP,METHOD,SESSION_ID,REMOTE_IP,&quot;INTERNAL_IP&quot;,&quot;USER_AGENT&quot;,PROTOCOL,SERVER_NAME,SERVER_PORT,BYTES_IN,ZUID,TICKET_DIGEST,THREAD_ID,REQ_ID"/>
       ]]> test
  </value>
  </property>
  </rootNode>

The second one has nested property elements (I added the missing element at the end):

  <property regex=".*" xpath=".*">
      <value>
          127.0.0.1
      </value>
      <property regex=".*" xpath=".*">
      <value>
          val <![CDATA[
          <Valve className="org.tomcat.AccessLogValve" exclude="PASSWORD,pwd,pWord,ticket" enabled="true" serviceName="zohocrm" logDir="../logs" fileName="access" format="URI,&quot;PARAM&quot;,&quot;REFERRER&quot;,TIME_TAKEN,BYTES_OUT,STATUS,TIMESTAMP,METHOD,SESSION_ID,REMOTE_IP,&quot;INTERNAL_IP&quot;,&quot;USER_AGENT&quot;,PROTOCOL,SERVER_NAME,SERVER_PORT,BYTES_IN,ZUID,TICKET_DIGEST,THREAD_ID,REQ_ID"/>
          ]]> test
      </value>
      </property>
  </property>