find xml node based on content

Question

i want to parse an XML with SAX-Parser and find a node which contains special content.

Example XML:

<root>
     <someElement>
            #hashKey1
     </someElement>
     <someElement>
            value1
     </someElement>
     <someElement>
            #hashKey2
     </someElement>
     <someElement>
            value2
     </someElement>
     <someElement>
            #hashKey3
     </someElement>
     <someElement>
            value3
     </someElement>
</root>

The problem is, that i don't know what kind of node/element it is, where my content is in. i just want to find the first element/node which contains my content.

Do i have to write my own function "findNodeByContent" or is there a SAX-Parser implementation which offers such a function?

Answer 1

You will have to create your own method that loops over the nodes. Unless I'm wrong there is no DOM method like getElementByValue.

Answer 2

Use the Xpath support in JDK instead of SAX. You can find the element with this expression

//*[contains(text(), 'value2')]

It will find all elements that has a text node that contains the text 'value2'.

Here is some sample code:

    XPath p = XPathFactory.newInstance().newXPath();
    InputSource in = new InputSource(...);
    NodeList list = (NodeList) p.evaluate("//*[contains(text(), 'value2')]", in, XPathConstants.NODESET);
    for(int i=0; i < list.getLength(); ++i) {
        System.out.println(list.item(i));
    }

Answer 3

try with this code..

public class SaxParser extends DefaultHandler {
    public void parse(String xmlName) throws ParserConfigurationException,
            SAXException, IOException {
        SAXParserFactory factory = SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
        SAXParser saxParser = factory.newSAXParser();
        SaxParser parser = new SaxParser();
        saxParser.parse("src/test.xml", parser);

    }

    public void characters(char[] buffer, int start, int length) {
        String text = new String(buffer, start, length);
        System.out.println(text);
        if(text.trim().equals("your value")){
            // your action
        }
    }

    public void startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName,
            Attributes attributes) {
    }

    public void endElement(String uri, String localName, String qName) {

    }

    public static void main(String[] a) throws ParserConfigurationException,
            SAXException, IOException {
        new SaxParser().parse("src/test.xml");
    }

}