Get full xml text from Node instance

Question

I have read XML file in Java with such code:

File file = new File("file.xml");
DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
Document doc = db.parse(file);

NodeList nodeLst = doc.getElementsByTagName("record");

for (int i = 0; i < nodeLst.getLength(); i++) {
     Node node = nodeLst.item(i);
...
}

So, how I can get full xml content from node instance? (including all tags, attributes etc.)

Thanks.

What do you mean by "get full xml content"? What type of object are you expecting to get back? A String? Something else? — Jim Garrison, Sep 04 '11 at 14:37
The full xml content will be in file.xml, or am I missing the point? Otherwise try http://stackoverflow.com/questions/35785/xml-serialization-in-java or http://xstream.codehaus.org/tutorial.html. — Paul Grime, Sep 04 '11 at 17:08
@PaulGrime, have you mean, what I must serialize "node" instance with XML serializer? — xVir, Sep 04 '11 at 17:24
@JimGarrison, by "get full xml content" I mean next (for example): data data data — xVir, Sep 04 '11 at 17:28

score 14 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

Check out this other answer from stackoverflow.

You would use a DOMSource (instead of the StreamSource), and pass your node in the constructor.

Then you can transform the node into a String.

Quick sample:

public class NodeToString {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws TransformerException, ParserConfigurationException, SAXException, IOException {
        // just to get access to a Node
        String fakeXml = "<!-- Document comment -->\n    <aaa>\n\n<bbb/>    \n<ccc/></aaa>";
        DocumentBuilder docBuilder = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance().newDocumentBuilder();
        Document doc = docBuilder.parse(new InputSource(new StringReader(fakeXml)));
        Node node = doc.getDocumentElement();

        // test the method
        System.out.println(node2String(node));
    }

    static String node2String(Node node) throws TransformerFactoryConfigurationError, TransformerException {
        // you may prefer to use single instances of Transformer, and
        // StringWriter rather than create each time. That would be up to your
        // judgement and whether your app is single threaded etc
        StreamResult xmlOutput = new StreamResult(new StringWriter());
        Transformer transformer = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
        transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.OMIT_XML_DECLARATION, "yes");
        transformer.transform(new DOMSource(node), xmlOutput);
        return xmlOutput.getWriter().toString();
    }
}

Get full xml text from Node instance

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