Code Snippets:XML Parsing using SAX

This code snippet shows parsing of an XML document using SAX parser.

import java.io.File;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.*;

import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
import org.xml.sax.SAXParseException;

public class ReadXML {

public static void main(String argv[]) {
  try {

   DocumentBuilderFactory docBuilderFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory
     .newInstance();
   DocumentBuilder docBuilder = docBuilderFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
   Document doc = docBuilder.parse(new File("employee.xml"));

   doc.getDocumentElement().normalize();
   System.out.println("Root element of the document is "
     + doc.getDocumentElement().getNodeName());

   NodeList listOfEmployees = doc.getElementsByTagName("employee");
   int totalEmployees = listOfEmployees.getLength();
   System.out.println("Total no of employees : " + totalEmployees);

   for (int i = 0; i < listOfEmployees.getLength(); i++) 
    {

    Node firstEmpNode = listOfEmployees.item(i);
    if (firstEmpNode.getNodeType() == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) 
     {

     Element firstEmpElement = (Element) firstEmpNode;

     // NodeList of first name
     NodeList firstNameList = firstEmpElement
       .getElementsByTagName("first");
     Element firstNameElement = (Element) firstNameList.item(0);

     NodeList txtFirstNameList = firstNameElement
       .getChildNodes();
     System.out.println("First Name : "
       + ((Node) txtFirstNameList.item(0)).getNodeValue()
         .trim());

     // NodeList of last name
     NodeList lastNameList = firstEmpElement
       .getElementsByTagName("last");
     Element lastNameElement = (Element) lastNameList.item(0);

     NodeList txtLastNameList = lastNameElement.getChildNodes();
     System.out.println("Last Name : "
       + ((Node) txtLastNameList.item(0)).getNodeValue()
         .trim());

     // NodeList of id
     NodeList idList = firstEmpElement
       .getElementsByTagName("id");
     Element idElement = (Element) idList.item(0);

     NodeList txtIdList = idElement.getChildNodes();
     System.out.println("Id : "
       + ((Node) txtIdList.item(0)).getNodeValue().trim());

    }

   }

  } catch (SAXParseException saxParseException) {
   saxParseException.printStackTrace();
  } catch (SAXException saxException) {
   saxException.printStackTrace();

  } catch (Throwable throwable) {
   throwable.printStackTrace();
  }

 }// end of main

}

Input XML file, 'employee.xml':

<employees><employee>
<first>Tom</first>
<last>Cruise</last>
<id>MI24</id>
</employee>
<employee>
<first>Clint</first>
<last>Eastwood</last>
<id>XY01</id>
</employee>
<employee>
<first>Sean</first>
<last>Connery</last>
<id>JB07</id>
</employee>
</employees>

And here is the output of executing this code:

Root element of the document is employees
Total no of employees : 3
First Name : Tom
Last Name : Cruise
Id : MI24
First Name : Clint
Last Name : Eastwood
Id : XY01
First Name : Sean
Last Name : Connery
Id : JB07