Converting Element to String

Question

Possibly a quite simple question. I have a Element from a XML request and I have done:

Element number;

number = serviceDetail.getChild("Number");

I now want to convert the Element number into a String and then be able to use the substring function on it. What is the most effective way to transform a element into a string? toString() failed and the string prints like @a06816 and trying to transform it seemed to throw alot of errors.

Any help will be appreciated

Edit: Sorry I wasn't 100% clear. The contents of the number element will be the value that is inside the 'Number' element in the XML request which will be a string.

SOLVED: Instead of the above code I used:

String number;
number = serviceDetail.getChildText("Number");

Oops sorry for the hassle guys!

Obtain the content of the element first before trying to convert it to string. What you're doing now is converting the child element (object) to string not the value. — Bitmap, Jul 26 '11 at 13:43
possible dup of [632043](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/632043/how-do-i-extract-child-element-from-xml-to-a-string-in-java). See transformer. — alphazero, Jul 26 '11 at 13:44

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 26 '11 at 13:49

I believe what you are trying to do requires you to marshall the element to your desired destination. If you use JAXB, you can do it like this: (taken from http://ws.apache.org/jaxme/manual/ch02s02.html)

public String asString(JAXBContext pContext, Object pObject) throws JAXBException {

    java.io.StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();

    Marshaller marshaller = pContext.createMarshaller();
    marshaller.setProperty(Marshaller.JAXB_ENCODING, "UTF-8");
    marshaller.marshal(pObject, sw);

    return sw.toString();
}

I -believe- pObject can be an org.w3c.dom.Element (assuming thats the Element class you are using.)

Hope that helps, Nick

I just noticed the link I posted was for jaxme...oops. But I think the approach for JAXB is identical, or at least similar enough. Getting a JAXBContext however can be a subject unto it's self. — Nick, Jul 26 '11 at 13:54

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 28 '11 at 09:13

0

Instead of the above code I used:

String number; number = serviceDetail.getChildText("Number");

Oops sorry for the hassle guys!

answered Jul 28 '11 at 09:13

Sad

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Converting Element to String

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