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Using Java to generate xml from an XSD schema

I have a requirement to create a sort of 'skeleton' xml based on an XSD schema.
The documents defined by these schemas have no namespace. They are authored by other developers, not in an automated way.
There is no mixed content allowed. That is, elements can contain elements only, or text only.
The rules for this sample xml are:
elements that can contain only text content should not be created in the sample xml
all other optional and mandatory elements should be included in the sample xml
elements should be created only once even if they can occur multiple times
any other nodes such as attributes, comments, processing instruction, etc. should be ommited - the sample xml would be an 'element tree'
Are there APIs or tools in Java that can generate such sample xml? I'm looking for pointers where to get started.
This needs to be done programmatically in a reliable way, as the sample xml is used by other XSLT transformations.

Hope below code will serve your purpose
package com.example.demo;
import java.io.File;
import javax.xml.namespace.QName;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerConfigurationException;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import jlibs.xml.sax.XMLDocument;
import jlibs.xml.xsd.XSInstance;
import jlibs.xml.xsd.XSParser;
public interface xsdtoxml {
public static void main(String[] pArgs) {
try {
String filename = "out.xsd";
// instance.
final Document doc = loadXsdDocument(filename);
//Find the docs root element and use it to find the targetNamespace
final Element rootElem = doc.getDocumentElement();
String targetNamespace = null;
if (rootElem != null && rootElem.getNodeName().equals("xs:schema"))
{
targetNamespace = rootElem.getAttribute("targetNamespace");
}
//Parse the file into an XSModel object
org.apache.xerces.xs.XSModel xsModel = new XSParser().parse(filename);
//Define defaults for the XML generation
XSInstance instance = new XSInstance();
instance.minimumElementsGenerated = 1;
instance.maximumElementsGenerated = 1;
instance.generateDefaultAttributes = true;
instance.generateOptionalAttributes = true;
instance.maximumRecursionDepth = 0;
instance.generateAllChoices = true;
instance.showContentModel = true;
instance.generateOptionalElements = true;
//Build the sample xml doc
//Replace first param to XMLDoc with a file input stream to write to file
QName rootElement = new QName(targetNamespace, "out");
XMLDocument sampleXml = new XMLDocument(new StreamResult(System.out), true, 4, null);
instance.generate(xsModel, rootElement, sampleXml);
} catch (TransformerConfigurationException e)
{
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static Document loadXsdDocument(String inputName) {
final String filename = inputName;
final DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory
.newInstance();
factory.setValidating(false);
factory.setIgnoringElementContentWhitespace(true);
factory.setIgnoringComments(true);
Document doc = null;
try {
final DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
final File inputFile = new File(filename);
doc = builder.parse(inputFile);
} catch (final Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
// throw new ContentLoadException(msg);
}
return doc;
}
}

xsd to xml :
1 : you can use eclipse (right click and select Generate)
2 : Sun/Oracle Multi-Schema Validator
3 : xmlgen
see:
How to generate sample XML documents from their DTD or XSD?
for subtle requirements, you should program it yourself

StaX parsing: Transformer.transform method moves cursor automatically, not always nice

I am using XMLStreamReader to achieve my goal(splitting xml file). It looks good, but still does not give the desired result. My aim is to split every node "nextTag" from an input file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<firstTag>
<nextTag>1</nextTag>
<nextTag>2</nextTag>
</firstTag>
The outcome should look like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><nextTag>1</nextTag>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><nextTag>2</nextTag>
Referring to Split 1GB Xml file using Java I achieved my goal with this code:
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.StringWriter;
import javax.xml.stream.XMLInputFactory;
import javax.xml.stream.XMLStreamReader;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.stax.StAXSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
public class Demo4 {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
InputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream("input.xml");
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));
XMLInputFactory factory = XMLInputFactory.newInstance();
TransformerFactory tf = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
Transformer t = tf.newTransformer();
XMLStreamReader streamReader = factory.createXMLStreamReader(in);
while (streamReader.hasNext()) {
streamReader.next();
if (streamReader.getEventType() == XMLStreamReader.START_ELEMENT
&& "nextTag".equals(streamReader.getLocalName())) {
StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
t.transform(new StAXSource(streamReader), new StreamResult(
writer));
String output = writer.toString();
System.out.println(output);
}
}
}
}
Actually very simple. But, my input file is in form from a single line:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><firstTag><nextTag>1</nextTag><nextTag>2</nextTag></firstTag>
My Java code does not produce the desired output anymore, instead just this result:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><nextTag>1</nextTag>
After spending hours, I am pretty sure to already find out the reason:
t.transform(new StAXSource(streamReader), new StreamResult(writer));
It is because, after the transform method being executed, the cursor will automatically moved forward to the next event. And in the code, I have this fraction:
while (streamReader.hasNext()) {
streamReader.next();
...
t.transform(new StAXSource(streamReader), new StreamResult(writer));
...
}
After the first transform, the streamReader gets directly 2 times next():
1. from the transform method
2. from the next method in the while loop
So, in case of this specific line XML, the cursor can never achive the second open tag .
In opposite, if the input XML has a pretty print form, the second can be reached from the cursor because there is a space-event after the first closing tag
Unfortunately, I could not find anything how to do settings, so that the transformator does not automatically spring to next event after performing the transform method. This is so frustating.
Does anybody have any idea how I can deal with it? Also semantically is very welcome. Thank you so much.
Regards,
Ratna
PS. I can surely write a workaround for this problem(pretty print the xml document before transforming it, but this would mean that the input xml was being modified before, this is not allowed)

As you elaborated did the transformation step proceed to the next create element if the element-nodes follow directly each other.
In order to deal with this, you can rewrite you code using nested while loops, like this:
while(reader.next() != XMLStreamConstants.END_DOCUMENT) {
while(reader.getEventType() == XMLStreamConstants.START_ELEMENT && reader.getLocalName().equals("nextTag")) {
StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
// will transform the current node to a String, moves the cursor to the next START_ELEMENT
t.transform(new StAXSource(reader), new StreamResult(writer));
System.out.println(writer.toString());
}
}

In case your xml file fits in memory, you can try with the help of the JOOX library, imported in gradle like:
compile 'org.jooq:joox:1.3.0'
And the main class, like:
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import org.joox.JOOX;
import org.joox.Match;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerException;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import static org.joox.JOOX.$;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args)
throws IOException, SAXException, TransformerException {
DocumentBuilder builder = JOOX.builder();
Document document = builder.parse(new File(args[0]));
Transformer transformer =
TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
transformer.setOutputProperty("omit-xml-declaration", "no");
final Match $m = $(document);
$m.find("nextTag").forEach(tag -> {
try {
transformer.transform(
new DOMSource(tag),
new StreamResult(System.out));
System.out.println();
}
catch (TransformerException e) {
System.exit(1);
}
});
}
}
It yields:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><nextTag>1</nextTag>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><nextTag>2</nextTag>

Loading local chunks in DOM while parsing a large XML file in SAX (Java)

I've an xml file that I would avoid having to load all in memory.
As everyone know, for such a file I better have to use a SAX parser (which will go along the file and call for events if something relevant is found.)
My current problem is that I would like to process the file "by chunk" which means:
Parse the file and find a relevant tag (node)
Load this tag entirely in memory (like we would do it in DOM)
Do the process of this entity (that local chunk)
When I'm done with the chunk, release it and continue to 1. (until "end of file")
In a perfect world I'm searching some something like this:
// 1. Create a parser and set the file to load
IdealParser p = new IdealParser("BigFile.xml");
// 2. Set an XPath to define the interesting nodes
p.setRelevantNodesPath("/path/to/relevant/nodes");
// 3. Add a handler to callback the right method once a node is found
p.setHandler(new Handler(){
// 4. The method callback by the parser when a relevant node is found
void aNodeIsFound(saxNode aNode)
{
// 5. Inflate the current node i.e. load it (and all its content) in memory
DomNode d = aNode.expand();
// 6. Do something with the inflated node (method to be defined somewhere)
doThingWithNode(d);
}
});
// 7. Start the parser
p.start();
I'm currently stuck on how to expand a "sax node" (understand me…) efficiently.
Is there any Java framework or library relevant to this kind of task?

UPDATE
You could also just use the javax.xml.xpath APIs:
package forum7998733;
import java.io.FileReader;
import javax.xml.xpath.*;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;
import org.xml.sax.InputSource;
public class XPathDemo {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
XPathFactory xpf = XPathFactory.newInstance();
XPath xpath = xpf.newXPath();
InputSource xml = new InputSource(new FileReader("BigFile.xml"));
Node result = (Node) xpath.evaluate("/path/to/relevant/nodes", xml, XPathConstants.NODE);
System.out.println(result);
}
}
Below is a sample of how it could be done with StAX.
input.xml
Below is some sample XML:
<statements>
<statement account="123">
...stuff...
</statement>
<statement account="456">
...stuff...
</statement>
</statements>
Demo
In this example a StAX XMLStreamReader is used to find the node that will be converted to a DOM. In this example we convert each statement fragment to a DOM, but your navigation algorithm could be more advanced.
package forum7998733;
import java.io.FileReader;
import javax.xml.stream.*;
import javax.xml.transform.*;
import javax.xml.transform.stax.StAXSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.*;
public class Demo {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
XMLInputFactory xif = XMLInputFactory.newInstance();
XMLStreamReader xsr = xif.createXMLStreamReader(new FileReader("src/forum7998733/input.xml"));
xsr.nextTag(); // Advance to statements element
TransformerFactory tf = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
Transformer t = tf.newTransformer();
while(xsr.nextTag() == XMLStreamConstants.START_ELEMENT) {
DOMResult domResult = new DOMResult();
t.transform(new StAXSource(xsr), domResult);
DOMSource domSource = new DOMSource(domResult.getNode());
StreamResult streamResult = new StreamResult(System.out);
t.transform(domSource, streamResult);
}
}
}
Output
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?><statement account="123">
...stuff...
</statement><?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?><statement account="456">
...stuff...
</statement>

It could be done with SAX... But I think the newer StAX (Streaming API for XML) will serve your purpose better. You could create an XMLEventReader and use that to parse your file, detecting which nodes adhere to one of your criteria. For simple path-based selection (not really XPath, but some simple / delimited path) you'd need to maintain a path to your current node by adding entries to a String on new elements or cutting of entries on an end tag. A boolean flag can suffice to maintain whether you're currently in "relevant mode" or not.
As you obtain XMLEvents from your reader, you could copy the relevant ones over to an XMLEventWriter that you've created on some suitable placeholder, like a StringWriter or ByteArrayOutputStream. Once you've completed the copying for some XML extract that forms a "subdocument" of what you wish to build a DOM for, simply supply your placeholder to a DocumentBuilder in a suitable form.
The limitation here is that you're not harnessing all the power of the XPath language. If you wish to take stuff like node position into account, you'd have to foresee that in your own path. Perhaps someone knows of a good way of integrating a true XPath implementation into this.
StAX is really nice in that it gives you control over the parsing, rather than using some callback interface through a handler like SAX.
There's yet another alternative: using XSLT. An XSLT stylesheet is the ideal way to filter out only relevant stuff. You could transform your input once to obtain the required fragments and process those. Or run multiple stylesheets over the same input to get the desired extract each time. An even nicer (and more efficient) solution, however, would be the use of extension functions and/or extension elements.
Extension functions can be implemented in a way that's independent from the XSLT processor being used. They're fairly straightforward to use in Java and I know for a fact that you can use them to pass complete XML extracts to a method, because I've done so already. Might take some experimentation, but it's a powerful mechanism. A DOM extract (or node) is probably one of the accepted parameter types for such a method. That'd leave the document building up to the XSLT processor which is even easier.
Extension elements are also very useful, but I think they need to be used in an implementation-specific manner. If you're okay with tying yourself to a specific JAXP setup like Xerces + Xalan, they might be the answer.
When going for XSLT, you'll have all the advantages of a full XPath 1.0 implementation, plus the peace of mind that comes from knowing XSLT is in really good shape in Java. It limits the building of the input tree to those nodes that are needed at any time and is blazing fast because the processors tend to compile stylesheets into Java bytecode rather than interpreting them. It is possible that using compilation instead of interpretation loses the possibility of using extension elements, though. Not certain about that. Extension functions are still possible.
Whatever way you choose, there's so much out there for XML processing in Java that you'll find plenty of help in implementing this, should you have no luck in finding a ready-made solution. That'd be the most obvious thing, of course... No need to reinvent the wheel when someone did the hard work.
Good luck!
EDIT: because I'm actually not feeling depressed for once, here's a demo using the StAX solution I whipped up. It's certainly not the cleanest code, but it'll give you the basic idea:
package staxdom;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.StringReader;
import java.io.StringWriter;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.Stack;
import javax.xml.namespace.QName;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
import javax.xml.stream.XMLEventReader;
import javax.xml.stream.XMLEventWriter;
import javax.xml.stream.XMLInputFactory;
import javax.xml.stream.XMLOutputFactory;
import javax.xml.stream.XMLStreamException;
import javax.xml.stream.events.StartElement;
import javax.xml.stream.events.XMLEvent;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerConfigurationException;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerException;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.xml.sax.InputSource;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
public class DOMExtractor {
private final Set<String> paths;
private final XMLInputFactory inputFactory;
private final XMLOutputFactory outputFactory;
private final DocumentBuilderFactory docBuilderFactory;
private final Stack<QName> activeStack = new Stack<QName>();
private boolean active = false;
private String currentPath = "";
public DOMExtractor(final Set<String> paths) {
this.paths = Collections.unmodifiableSet(new HashSet<String>(paths));
inputFactory = XMLInputFactory.newFactory();
outputFactory = XMLOutputFactory.newFactory();
docBuilderFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
}
public void parse(final InputStream input) throws XMLStreamException, ParserConfigurationException, SAXException, IOException {
final XMLEventReader reader = inputFactory.createXMLEventReader(input);
XMLEventWriter writer = null;
StringWriter buffer = null;
final DocumentBuilder builder = docBuilderFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
XMLEvent currentEvent = reader.nextEvent();
do {
if(active)
writer.add(currentEvent);
if(currentEvent.isEndElement()) {
if(active) {
activeStack.pop();
if(activeStack.isEmpty()) {
writer.flush();
writer.close();
final Document doc;
final StringReader docReader = new StringReader(buffer.toString());
try {
doc = builder.parse(new InputSource(docReader));
} finally {
docReader.close();
}
//TODO: use doc
//Next bit is only for demo...
outputDoc(doc);
active = false;
writer = null;
buffer = null;
}
}
int index;
if((index = currentPath.lastIndexOf('/')) >= 0)
currentPath = currentPath.substring(0, index);
} else if(currentEvent.isStartElement()) {
final StartElement start = (StartElement)currentEvent;
final QName qName = start.getName();
final String local = qName.getLocalPart();
currentPath += "/" + local;
if(!active && paths.contains(currentPath)) {
active = true;
buffer = new StringWriter();
writer = outputFactory.createXMLEventWriter(buffer);
writer.add(currentEvent);
}
if(active)
activeStack.push(qName);
}
currentEvent = reader.nextEvent();
} while(!currentEvent.isEndDocument());
}
private void outputDoc(final Document doc) {
try {
final Transformer t = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
t.transform(new DOMSource(doc), new StreamResult(System.out));
System.out.println("");
System.out.println("");
} catch(TransformerException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
final Set<String> paths = new HashSet<String>();
paths.add("/root/one");
paths.add("/root/three/embedded");
final DOMExtractor me = new DOMExtractor(paths);
InputStream stream = null;
try {
stream = DOMExtractor.class.getResourceAsStream("sample.xml");
me.parse(stream);
} catch(final Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
if(stream != null)
try {
stream.close();
} catch(IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
And the sample.xml file (should be in the same package):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
<one>
<two>this is text</two>
look, I can even handle mixed!
</one>
... not sure what to do with this, though
<two>
<willbeignored/>
</two>
<three>
<embedded>
<and><here><we><go>
Creative Commons Legal Code
Attribution 3.0 Unported
CREATIVE COMMONS CORPORATION IS NOT A LAW FIRM AND DOES NOT PROVIDE
LEGAL SERVICES. DISTRIBUTION OF THIS LICENSE DOES NOT CREATE AN
ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP. CREATIVE COMMONS PROVIDES THIS
INFORMATION ON AN "AS-IS" BASIS. CREATIVE COMMONS MAKES NO WARRANTIES
REGARDING THE INFORMATION PROVIDED, AND DISCLAIMS LIABILITY FOR
DAMAGES RESULTING FROM ITS USE.
License
THE WORK (AS DEFINED BELOW) IS PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS CREATIVE
COMMONS PUBLIC LICENSE ("CCPL" OR "LICENSE"). THE WORK IS PROTECTED BY
COPYRIGHT AND/OR OTHER APPLICABLE LAW. ANY USE OF THE WORK OTHER THAN AS
AUTHORIZED UNDER THIS LICENSE OR COPYRIGHT LAW IS PROHIBITED.
BY EXERCISING ANY RIGHTS TO THE WORK PROVIDED HERE, YOU ACCEPT AND AGREE
TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. TO THE EXTENT THIS LICENSE MAY
BE CONSIDERED TO BE A CONTRACT, THE LICENSOR GRANTS YOU THE RIGHTS
CONTAINED HERE IN CONSIDERATION OF YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF SUCH TERMS AND
CONDITIONS.
</go></we></here></and>
</embedded>
</three>
</root>
EDIT 2: Just noticed in Blaise Doughan's answer that there's a StAXSource. That'll be even more efficient. Use that if you're going with StAX. Will eliminate the need to keep some buffer. StAX allows you to "peek" at the next event, so you can check if it's a start element with the right path without consuming it before passing it into the transformer .

ok thanks to your pieces of code, I finally end up with my solution:
Usage is quite intuitive:
try
{
/* CREATE THE PARSER */
XMLParser parser = new XMLParser();
/* CREATE THE FILTER (THIS IS A REGEX (X)PATH FILTER) */
XMLRegexFilter filter = new XMLRegexFilter("statements/statement");
/* CREATE THE HANDLER WHICH WILL BE CALLED WHEN A NODE IS FOUND */
XMLHandler handler = new XMLHandler()
{
public void nodeFound(StringBuilder node, XMLStackFilter withFilter)
{
// DO SOMETHING WITH THE FOUND XML NODE
System.out.println("Node found");
System.out.println(node.toString());
}
};
/* ATTACH THE FILTER WITH THE HANDLER */
parser.addFilterWithHandler(filter, handler);
/* SET THE FILE TO PARSE */
parser.setFilePath("/path/to/bigfile.xml");
/* RUN THE PARSER */
parser.parse();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
ex.printStackTrace();
}
Note:
I made a XMLNodeFoundNotifier and a XMLStackFilter interface to easily integrate or build your own handler / filter.
Normally you should be able to parse very large files with this class. Only the returned nodes are actually loaded into memory.
You can enable attributes support in uncommenting the right part in the code, I disabled it for simplicity reasons.
You can use as many filters per handler as you need and conversely
All the of the code is here:
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Stack;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import javax.xml.stream.*;
/* IMPLEMENT THIS TO YOUR CLASS IN ORDER TO TO BE NOTIFIED WHEN A NODE IS FOUND*/
interface XMLNodeFoundNotifier {
abstract void nodeFound(StringBuilder node, XMLStackFilter withFilter);
}
/* A SMALL HANDER USEFULL FOR EXPLICIT CLASS DECLARATION */
abstract class XMLHandler implements XMLNodeFoundNotifier {
}
/* INTERFACE TO WRITE YOUR OWN FILTER BASED ON THE CURRENT NODES STACK (PATH)*/
interface XMLStackFilter {
abstract boolean isRelevant(Stack fullPath);
}
/* A VERY USEFULL FILTER USING REGEX AS THE PATH FILTER */
class XMLRegexFilter implements XMLStackFilter {
Pattern relevantExpression;
XMLRegexFilter(String filterRules) {
relevantExpression = Pattern.compile(filterRules);
}
/* HERE WE ARE ARE ASK TO TELL IF THE CURRENT STACK (LIST OF NODES) IS RELEVANT
* OR NOT ACCORDING TO WHAT WE WANT. RETURN TRUE IF THIS IS THE CASE */
#Override
public boolean isRelevant(Stack fullPath) {
/* A POSSIBLE CLEVER WAY COULD BE TO SERIALIZE THE WHOLE PATH (INCLUDING
* ATTRIBUTES) TO A STRING AND TO MATCH IT WITH A REGEX BEING THE FILTER
* FOR NOW StackToString DOES NOT SERIALIZE ATTRIBUTES */
String stackPath = XMLParser.StackToString(fullPath);
Matcher m = relevantExpression.matcher(stackPath);
return m.matches();
}
}
/* THE MAIN PARSER'S CLASS */
public class XMLParser {
HashMap<XMLStackFilter, XMLNodeFoundNotifier> filterHandler;
HashMap<Integer, Integer> feedingStreams;
Stack<HashMap> currentStack;
String filePath;
XMLParser() {
currentStack = new <HashMap>Stack();
filterHandler = new <XMLStackFilter, XMLNodeFoundNotifier> HashMap();
feedingStreams = new <Integer, Integer>HashMap();
}
public void addFilterWithHandler(XMLStackFilter f, XMLNodeFoundNotifier h) {
filterHandler.put(f, h);
}
public void setFilePath(String filePath) {
this.filePath = filePath;
}
/* CONVERT A STACK OF NODES TO A REGULAR PATH STRING. NOTE THAT PER DEFAULT
* I DID NOT ADDED THE ATTRIBUTES INTO THE PATH. UNCOMENT THE LINKS ABOVE TO
* DO SO
*/
public static String StackToString(Stack<HashMap> s) {
int k = s.size();
if (k == 0) {
return null;
}
StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder();
out.append(s.get(0).get("tag"));
for (int x = 1; x < k; ++x) {
HashMap node = s.get(x);
out.append('/').append(node.get("tag"));
/*
// UNCOMMENT THIS TO ADD THE ATTRIBUTES SUPPORT TO THE PATH
ArrayList <String[]>attributes = (ArrayList)node.get("attr");
if (attributes.size()>0)
{
out.append("[");
for (int i = 0 ; i<attributes.size(); i++)
{
String[]keyValuePair = attributes.get(i);
if (i>0) out.append(",");
out.append(keyValuePair[0]);
out.append("=\"");
out.append(keyValuePair[1]);
out.append("\"");
}
out.append("]");
}*/
}
return out.toString();
}
/*
* ONCE A NODE HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY FOUND, WE GET THE DELIMITERS OF THE FILE
* WE THEN RETRIEVE THE DATA FROM IT.
*/
private StringBuilder getChunk(int from, int to) throws Exception {
int length = to - from;
FileReader f = new FileReader(filePath);
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(f);
br.skip(from);
char[] readb = new char[length];
br.read(readb, 0, length);
StringBuilder b = new StringBuilder();
b.append(readb);
return b;
}
/* TRANSFORMS AN XSR NODE TO A HASHMAP NODE'S REPRESENTATION */
public HashMap XSRNode2HashMap(XMLStreamReader xsr) {
HashMap h = new HashMap();
ArrayList attributes = new ArrayList();
for (int i = 0; i < xsr.getAttributeCount(); i++) {
String[] s = new String[2];
s[0] = xsr.getAttributeName(i).toString();
s[1] = xsr.getAttributeValue(i);
attributes.add(s);
}
h.put("tag", xsr.getName());
h.put("attr", attributes);
return h;
}
public void parse() throws Exception {
FileReader f = new FileReader(filePath);
XMLInputFactory xif = XMLInputFactory.newInstance();
XMLStreamReader xsr = xif.createXMLStreamReader(f);
Location previousLoc = xsr.getLocation();
while (xsr.hasNext()) {
switch (xsr.next()) {
case XMLStreamConstants.START_ELEMENT:
currentStack.add(XSRNode2HashMap(xsr));
for (XMLStackFilter filter : filterHandler.keySet()) {
if (filter.isRelevant(currentStack)) {
feedingStreams.put(currentStack.hashCode(), new Integer(previousLoc.getCharacterOffset()));
}
}
previousLoc = xsr.getLocation();
break;
case XMLStreamConstants.END_ELEMENT:
Integer stream = null;
if ((stream = feedingStreams.get(currentStack.hashCode())) != null) {
// FIND ALL THE FILTERS RELATED TO THIS FeedingStreem AND CALL THEIR HANDLER.
for (XMLStackFilter filter : filterHandler.keySet()) {
if (filter.isRelevant(currentStack)) {
XMLNodeFoundNotifier h = filterHandler.get(filter);
StringBuilder aChunk = getChunk(stream.intValue(), xsr.getLocation().getCharacterOffset());
h.nodeFound(aChunk, filter);
}
}
feedingStreams.remove(currentStack.hashCode());
}
previousLoc = xsr.getLocation();
currentStack.pop();
break;
default:
break;
}
}
}
}

A little while since i did SAX, but what you want to do is process each of the tags until you find the end tag for the group you want to process, then run your process, clear it out and look for the next start tag.

Reading XML online and Storing It (Using Java)

I found and followed an example from Stackoverflow (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2310139/how-to-read-xml-response-from-a-url-in-java) of how to read an XML file from a URL (as you can see in my code pasted below). My only trouble is that now that I got the program to read the XML, how do I get it to store it? For example, could I make it save the information to a XML file built into the project (this would be the best solution for me, if it's possible)? Such as, take for example, I have a blank XML file built into the project. The program runs, reads the XML code off of the URL, and stores it all into the pre-built blank XML file. Could I do this?
If I sound confusing or un-clear about anything, just ask me to clarify what I'm looking for.
And here is my code, if you'd like to look at what I have so far:
package xml.parsing.example;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLConnection;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerException;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
public class XmlParser {
public static void main (String[] args) throws IOException, ParserConfigurationException, SAXException, TransformerException {
URL url = new URL("http://totheriver.com/learn/xml/code/employees.xml");
URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();
DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
Document doc = builder.parse(conn.getInputStream());
TransformerFactory tfactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
Transformer xform = tfactory.newTransformer();
// that’s the default xform; use a stylesheet to get a real one
xform.transform(new DOMSource(doc), new StreamResult(System.out));
}
}

Very simply:
File myOutput = new File("c:\\myDirectory\\myOutput.xml");
xform.transform(new DOMSource(doc), new StreamResult(myOutput));

This page has some great examples of how to serialize the DOM object to a neatly formatted XML file.

Standardise on a XML reader methodology

In an open source project I maintain, we have at least three different ways of reading, processing and writing XML files and I would like to standardise on a single method for ease of maintenance and stability.
Currently all of the project files use XML from the configuration to the stored data, we're hoping to migrate to a simple database at some point in the future but will still need to read/write some form of XML files.
The data is stored in an XML format that we then use a XSLT engine (Saxon) to transform into the final HTML files.
We currently utilise these methods:
- XMLEventReader/XMLOutputFactory (javax.xml.stream)
- DocumentBuilderFactory (javax.xml.parsers)
- JAXBContext (javax.xml.bind)
Are there any obvious pros and cons to each of these?
Personally, I like the simplicity of DOM (Document Builder), but I'm willing to convert to one of the others if it makes sense in terms of performance or other factors.
Edited to add:
There can be a significant number of files read/written when the project runs, between 100 & 10,000 individual files of around 5Kb each

It depends on what you are doing with the data.
If you are simply performing XSLT transforms on XML files to produce HTML files then you may not need to touch a parser directly:
import java.io.File;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamSource;
public class Demo {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
TransformerFactory tf = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
StreamSource xsltTransform = new StreamSource(new File("xslt.xml"));
Transformer transformer = tf.newTransformer(xsltTransform);
StreamSource source = new StreamSource(new File("source.xml"));
StreamResult result = new StreamResult(new File("result.html"));
transformer.transform(source, result);
}
}
If you need to make changes to the input document before you transform it, DOM is a convenient mechanism for doing this:
import java.io.File;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamSource;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
public class Demo {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
TransformerFactory tf = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
StreamSource xsltTransform = new StreamSource(new File("xslt.xml"));
Transformer transformer = tf.newTransformer(xsltTransform);
DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
Document document = db.parse(new File("source.xml"));
// modify the document
DOMSource source = new DOMSource(document);
StreamResult result = new StreamResult(new File("result.html"));
transformer.transform(source, result);
}
}
If you prefer a typed model to make changes to the data then JAXB is a perfect fit:
import java.io.File;
import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
import javax.xml.bind.Unmarshaller;
import javax.xml.bind.util.JAXBSource;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamSource;
public class Demo {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
TransformerFactory tf = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
StreamSource xsltTransform = new StreamSource(new File("xslt.xml"));
Transformer transformer = tf.newTransformer(xsltTransform);
JAXBContext jc = JAXBContext.newInstance("com.example.model");
Unmarshaller unmarshaller = jc.createUnmarshaller();
Model model = (Model) unmarshaller.unmarshal(new File("source.xml"));
// modify the domain model
JAXBSource source = new JAXBSource(jc, model);
StreamResult result = new StreamResult(new File("result.html"));
transformer.transform(source, result);
}
}

This is a very subjective topic. It primarily depends on how you are going to use the xml and size of XML. If XML is (always) small enough to be loaded in to memory, then you don't have to worry about memory foot print. You can use DOM parser. If you need to a parse through 150 MB xml you may want to think of using SAX. etc.