HTML DOM Tree to String - Transformer NullPointerException

Question

I'm trying to convert the content of an org.w3c.dom.Document object into a string. I get the Document object of the current page displayed in the JBrowser component. The most common way to convert a document dom tree into a string seems to be using a javax.xml.transform.Transformer. So I implemented this:

ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();

TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer().transform(
            new DOMSource(aDocument), new StreamResult(baos));

return baos.toString();

This works for simple websites, but the more complex they get the higher the probability of me getting this exception:

    ERROR:  ''
05.07.2012 10:17:09 com.de.test.Demonstrator$1 run
FATAL: null
javax.xml.transform.TransformerException: java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transform(TransformerImpl.java:717)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transform(TransformerImpl.java:313)
at com.de.test.DocumentUtils.toHTML(DocumentUtils.java:47)
at com.de.test.Demonstrator$1.run(Demonstrator.java:172)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:178)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:132)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:94)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transformIdentity(TransformerImpl.java:662)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transform(TransformerImpl.java:708)
... 3 more
---------
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:178)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:226)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:132)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.DOM2TO.parse(DOM2TO.java:94)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transformIdentity(TransformerImpl.java:662)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transform(TransformerImpl.java:708)
at com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerImpl.transform(TransformerImpl.java:313)
at com.de.test.DocumentUtils.toHTML(DocumentUtils.java:47)
at com.de.test.Demonstrator$1.run(Demonstrator.java:172)

After some research found out about the hint, that some text elements might be null and that this causes the Transformer to crash. So I did just that:

    public static final void traverseLevel(TreeWalker walker, Document aDocument, String indent)
{
    // describe current node:
    Node parent = walker.getCurrentNode();

    if (parent != null && parent.getNodeValue() == null)
        parent.setNodeValue(" ");

    System.out.println(indent + "- <" + ((Element) parent).getTagName() + ">" + parent.getNodeValue());

    // traverse children:
    for (Node n = walker.firstChild(); n != null; n = walker.nextSibling())
    {
        if(n != null)
            traverseLevel(walker, aDocument, indent + '\t');
    }

    System.out.println("</"+ ((Element) parent).getTagName() + ">");

    // return position to the current (level up):
    walker.setCurrentNode(parent);
}

This is where I found out that "parent.getNodeValue()" always returns null. The funny thing is, that the problem also occurs on simple websites, but the transformer still outputs the tree's values. Any idea what's wrong with my replacement of null text nodes? Are there other potential problems that might cause this issue?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Ok, I found a workaround for my problem. I've changed the JBrowser to the DJ Project browser which has a convertToHtml() function. I could not solve the Transformer problem that's why I've taken this route.