Parsing XML Node in Java using XPATH

Question

I just started to try Jaxp13XPathTemplate but I'm a bit confused on parsing the XML.

Here is the sample XML

<fxDataSets> 
<fxDataSet name="NAME_A">
  <link rel="self" href="http://localhost:8080/linkA"/>
  <baseCurrency>EUR</baseCurrency>
  <description>TEST DESCRIPTION A</description>
</fxDataSet>

<fxDataSet name="NAME_B">
  <link rel="self" href="http://localhost:8080/linkB"/>
  <baseCurrency>EUR</baseCurrency>
  <description>TEST DESCRIPTION B</description>
</fxDataSet>
<fxDataSets>

I'm already able to get NAME_A and NAME_B however I'm not able to get the description for both Node.

Here is what I have come up with.

XPathOperations  xpathTemplate = new Jaxp13XPathTemplate();
    String fxRateURL = "http://localhost:8080/rate/datasets";
    RestTemplate restTemplate = new RestTemplate();
    Source fxRate = restTemplate.getForObject(fxRateURL,Source.class);
    List<Map<String, Object>> currencyList = xpathTemplate.evaluate("//fxDataSet", fxRate , new NodeMapper() {
        public Object mapNode(Node node, int i) throws DOMException 
        {
            Map<String, Object> singleFXMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
            Element fxDataSet = (Element) node;
            String id    = fxDataSet.getAttribute("name");

            /* This part is not working
            if(fxDataSet.hasChildNodes())
            {
                NodeList nodeList = fxDataSet.getChildNodes();
                int length = nodeList.getLength();

                for(int index=0;i<length;i++)
                {
                    Node childNode = nodeList.item(index);
                    System.out.println("childNode name"+childNode.getLocalName()+":"+childNode.getNodeValue());
                }

            }*/

            return new Object();
        }
    });

shift66 · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-09 06:16:01Z

1

try to use dom4j library and it's saxReader.

    InputStream is = FileUtils.class.getResourceAsStream("file.xml");

    SAXReader reader = new SAXReader();
    org.dom4j.Document doc = reader.read(is);
    is.close();
    Element content = doc.getRootElement();  //this will return the root element in your xml file
    List<Element> methodEls = content.elements("element"); // this will retun List of all Elements with name "element"

answered Nov 9, 2011 at 6:16

shift66

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1 Comment

Rudy Over a year ago

hi Ademiban, I had got the Element already. The problem here is how to get description tag value, not to get the element.

Kowser · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-09 07:10:30Z

Take a look public <T> List<T> evaluate(String expression, Source context, NodeMapper<T> nodeMapper)

evaluate takes NodeMapper<T> as one of its parameter
it returns object of type List<T>

But for your given code snippet:

its passing new NodeMapper() as parameter
but trying to return List<Map<String, Object>> which is surely violation of the contract of the api.

Probable solution:

I am assuming you wanna return a object of type FxDataSet which wraps <fxDataSet>...</fxDataSet> element. If this is the case,

pass parameter as new NodeMapper<FxDataSet>() as parameter
use List<FxDataSet> currencyList = ... as left hand side expression;
change method return type as public FxDataSet mapNode(Node node, int i) throws DOMException.

Take a look at the documentation also for NodeMapper.

Surely, I have not used Jaxp13XPathTemplate, but this should be common Java concept which helped me to find out what was wrong actually. I wish this solution will work.

Andrew B · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-07 15:44:15Z

0

If you want to get at the child nodes of the fxDataSet element you should be able to do:

Node descriptionNode= fxDataSet.getElementsByTagName("description").item(0);

answered Dec 7, 2011 at 15:44

Andrew B

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