Best way of decoding xml code into Java objects?

Question

I need to know what the best solution would be to read the following xml code and place the result into objects:

             <accountInformation>
           <customField>
              <key>businessregno</key>
              <value>12345</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>emailaddress</key>
              <value>info@payat.co.za</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>idnumber</key>
              <value>8601095195084</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>initial</key>
              <value>J</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>lastname</key>
              <value>Boshoff</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>licensetype</key>
              <value>07</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>licensetypedescription</key>
              <value>Normal</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>loaduserid</key>
              <value>12345</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>passportno</key>
              <value>1234512345</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>title</key>
              <value>Mr</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>validationrefno</key>
              <value>0</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>accountnumber</key>
              <value>608806709</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>balance</key>
              <value>500</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>contactno</key>
              <value>0846769478</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>landlinecontactno</key>
              <value>0218865557</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>physicaladdress</key>
              <value>SUITE 4,OU KOLLEGE GEBOU,STELLIES,WESTERN PROVINCE,5600,35,CHURCH STREET,</value>
           </customField>
           <customField>
              <key>validity</key>
              <value>true</value>
           </customField>
        </accountInformation>

The problem I have tried a hash map, but all the elements have the same name so I have a issue populating it into a list.

What would be the best way for me to write it into java objects?

Thank you for the help.

I don't see all elements having the same name.. there is a key tag and thus key should be unique. Make sure it is.. anyhow what about list of string array? — Stefan, Aug 24 '15 at 11:34
I would recommend using JAXB unmarshalling. Take a look here: [Convert XML to Java object using JAXB unmarshal](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11221136/convert-xml-to-java-object-using-jaxb-unmarshal) — Tomas Stefan, Aug 24 '15 at 13:05

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 24 '15 at 12:07

I'm doing something similar and found the w3c DOM is pretty decent.

File xmlFile = new File(path);

DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
factory.setFeature(
        "http://apache.org/xml/features/nonvalidating/load-external-dtd",
        false);
DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();

document = builder.parse(xmlFile); //or parse the String

document.getDocumentElement().normalize();

So now you have the xml file as a Document object.

Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>();
NodeList nodelist = document.getElementsByTagName("customField")

for (int i=0; i<nodelist.getLength(); i++) {
    Element element = (Element) nodelist.item(i);

    String key = element.getAttributes("key");
    String value = element.getAttributes("value");

    map.put(key,value);
}

And now you have a map of key/values.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 24 '15 at 11:45

0

If you are working on spring create bean for org.springframework.oxm.jaxb.Jaxb2Marshaller by setting property classesToBeBound to pojo class.

answered Aug 24 '15 at 11:45

Rahul

1
1

it's a good idea to include some example code with your answer, so the OP can learn from it. – NaijaProgrammer Aug 24 '15 at 12:23

Best way of decoding xml code into Java objects?

2 Answers2