Question

Quick question:

if I have an XML like this one:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<cop xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="cop.xsd">
    <auth>
        <uid mioattributo="20">16<![CDATA[
function matchwo(a,b) ]]></uid>
    </auth>
</cop>

so uid has two children right? One of Node.CDATA_SECTION_NODE and one of Node.TEXT_NODE.

Implementing this quick class (extending the usual DefaultHandler):

public class MyHandler extends DefaultHandler {
    /**
     * Logger for this class
     */
    private static final Log log = LogFactory.getLog(MyHandler.class);
    private StringBuilder sb;

    @Override
    public void startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName,
        Attributes attributes) throws SAXException {
    System.out.println("STARTUri: " + uri);
    System.out.println("STARTLocalName: " + localName);
    System.out.println("STARTqName: " + qName);
//  for(int i=0;i<attributes.getLength();i++) {
//      System.out.println("LocalName: "+attributes.getLocalName(i));
//      System.out.println("Type: "+attributes.getType(i));
//      System.out.println("qName: "+attributes.getQName(i));
//      System.out.println("URI: "+attributes.getURI(i));
//      System.out.println("Value: "+attributes.getValue(i));
//  }
    sb = new StringBuilder();
    //super.startElement(uri, localName, qName, attributes);
    }

    @Override
    public void characters(char[] ch, int start, int length)
            throws SAXException {
    sb.append(ch, start, length);
    System.out.println("TEMPORARY: " + sb.toString());
    System.out.println();
    }

    @Override
    public void endElement(String uri, String localName, String qName)
            throws SAXException {
    System.out.println("ENDUri: " + uri);
    System.out.println("ENDLocalName: " + localName);
    System.out.println("ENDqName: " + qName);
    System.out.println("Content: " + sb.toString());
    sb.replace(0, sb.length()-1,"");
    }

}

The parsing of the output would be something like:

Is Validating: true
STARTUri: 
STARTLocalName: cop
STARTqName: cop
TEMPORARY: 


STARTUri: 
STARTLocalName: auth
STARTqName: auth
TEMPORARY: 


STARTUri: 
STARTLocalName: uid
STARTqName: uid
TEMPORARY: 16

TEMPORARY: 16
function matchwo(a,b) 

ENDUri: 
ENDLocalName: uid
ENDqName: uid
Content: 16
function matchwo(a,b) 
TEMPORARY:  


ENDUri: 
ENDLocalName: auth
ENDqName: auth
Content:  

TEMPORARY:  


ENDUri: 
ENDLocalName: cop
ENDqName: cop
Content:    

From the output we can see that the method characters() is called twice inside the node uid so it recognizes the two children. Is there a way to know which one is the CDATA and which one is the TEXT?

Answer 1

You should look at the LexicalHandler which tells you about CDATA start/ends.

Note that the SAX parser is at liberty to call your characters() method as many (or as few) times as it needs, in order for you to build up a string (which you only know is complete upon endElement() being called), and you can’t rely on it in order to determine document structure.