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Android: Simple XML DOM parser

22 November 2012 By Nithya Vasudevan 27,578 views 5 Comments

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Contents

1 Project Description
2 Environment Used
3 Prerequisites
4 Create Android Project
5 Output
6 Project Folder Structure

Project Description

This Android code example shows how to parse a simple XML using DOM parser and display it in TextView.

Usually, we display the XML result in ListView or Spinner which is explained in tutorials Android: Parsing XML with children and attributes using DOM and Android XML DOM parser with AsyncTask.

In this example, we are going to store the XML file in project’s assets folder and open the file as InputStream using AssetManager.
On button click event, we parse the XML and display the result in TextView.

To parse an XML in Android, you can use DOM and SAX parser API provided by Java platform. In addition to these two parsers, Android provides XmlPullParser which is similar to StAX parser and also the recommended parser to be used in Android.

Environment Used

JDK 6 (Java SE 6)
Eclipse Indigo IDE for Java EE Developers (3.7.1)
Android SDK 4.0.3 / 4.1 Jelly Bean
Android Development Tools (ADT) Plugin for Eclipse (ADT version 20.0.0)
Refer this link to setup the Android development environment

Prerequisites

HelloWorld Example

Create Android Project

Create a new Android Project and name it as “SimpleDOMParser“.
Enter the package name as “com.theopentutorials.android.xml“.
Enter the Activity name as “DOMXMLParsingActivity“.
Click Finish.

Create XML file

In the project’s assets folder, create a new XML file and name it as “employee.xml” and copy the following.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<employee>
    <name>Kumar</name>
    <salary>30000.0</salary>
    <designation>Junior Developer</designation>
</employee>

strings.xml

Open res/values/string.xml and replace it with following content.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string name="hello">Hello World, DOMXMLParsingActivity!</string>
    <string name="app_name">SimpleDOMParser</string>
    <string name="button">Parse XML using DOM</string>
    <string name="nameLabel">Name</string>
    <string name="salaryLabel">Salary</string>
    <string name="designationLabel">Designation</string>
</resources>

XML layout file

This file defines a layout for displaying the result of DOM parsing in TextView.
Open main.xml file in res/layout and copy the following content.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GridLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:columnCount="5" >

    <Button
        android:id="@+id/button"
        android:layout_column="0"
        android:layout_columnSpan="3"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:layout_row="0"
        android:text="@string/button" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/nameLabel"
        android:layout_column="1"
        android:layout_gravity="left"
        android:layout_row="1"
        android:text="@string/nameLabel"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/nameText"
        android:layout_width="149dp"
        android:layout_column="2"
        android:layout_columnSpan="3"
        android:layout_row="1"
        android:text=""
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/salaryLabel"
        android:layout_column="1"
        android:layout_row="2"
        android:text="@string/salaryLabel"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/salaryText"
        android:layout_column="2"
        android:layout_row="2"
        android:text=""
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/designationLabel"
        android:layout_column="1"
        android:layout_row="3"
        android:text="@string/designationLabel"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/designationText"
        android:layout_column="2"
        android:layout_gravity="left"
        android:layout_row="3"
        android:text=""
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />

    <Space
        android:layout_width="21dp"
        android:layout_height="1dp"
        android:layout_column="0"
        android:layout_gravity="fill_horizontal"
        android:layout_row="0" />

    <Space
        android:layout_width="1dp"
        android:layout_height="81dp"
        android:layout_column="0"
        android:layout_gravity="fill_horizontal"
        android:layout_row="0" />

    <Space
        android:layout_width="134dp"
        android:layout_height="1dp"
        android:layout_column="1"
        android:layout_gravity="fill_horizontal"
        android:layout_row="0" />

    <Space
        android:layout_width="1dp"
        android:layout_height="53dp"
        android:layout_column="0"
        android:layout_gravity="fill_horizontal"
        android:layout_row="1" />

    <Space
        android:layout_width="1dp"
        android:layout_height="58dp"
        android:layout_column="0"
        android:layout_gravity="fill_horizontal"
        android:layout_row="2" />

</GridLayout>

Create XMLDOMParser class

package com.theopentutorials.android.xml;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;
import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
import org.xml.sax.InputSource;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
import android.util.Log;

public class XMLDOMParser {
	//Returns the entire XML document 
	public Document getDocument(InputStream inputStream) {
		Document document = null;
		DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
		try {
			DocumentBuilder db = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
			InputSource inputSource = new InputSource(inputStream);
			document = db.parse(inputSource);
		} catch (ParserConfigurationException e) {
			Log.e("Error: ", e.getMessage());
			return null;
		} catch (SAXException e) {
			Log.e("Error: ", e.getMessage());
			return null;
		} catch (IOException e) {
			Log.e("Error: ", e.getMessage());
			return null;
		}
		return document;
	}

	/*
	 * I take a XML element and the tag name, look for the tag and get
	 * the text content i.e for <employee><name>Kumar</name></employee>
	 * XML snippet if the Element points to employee node and tagName 
	 * is name I will return Kumar. Calls the private method 
	 * getTextNodeValue(node) which returns the text value, say in our 
	 * example Kumar. */
	public String getValue(Element item, String name) {
		NodeList nodes = item.getElementsByTagName(name);
		return this.getTextNodeValue(nodes.item(0));
	}

	private final String getTextNodeValue(Node node) {
		Node child;
		if (node != null) {
			if (node.hasChildNodes()) {
				child = node.getFirstChild();
				while(child != null) {
					if (child.getNodeType() == Node.TEXT_NODE) {
						return child.getNodeValue();
					}
					child = child.getNextSibling();
				}
			}
		}
		return "";
	}
}

Create DOMXMLParsingActivity class

package com.theopentutorials.android.xml;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.res.AssetManager;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class DOMXMLParsingActivity extends Activity implements OnClickListener {
	TextView nameText;
	TextView salaryText;
	TextView designationText;
	Button button;

	// XML node names
	static final String NODE_EMP = "employee";
	static final String NODE_NAME = "name";
	static final String NODE_SALARY = "salary";
	static final String NODE_DESIGNATION = "designation";

	/** Called when the activity is first created. */
	@Override
	public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
		setContentView(R.layout.main);

		findViewsById();

		button.setOnClickListener(this);
	}

	private void findViewsById() {
		nameText = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.nameText);
		salaryText = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.salaryText);
		designationText = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.designationText);
		button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button);
	}

	public void onClick(View v) {
		XMLDOMParser parser = new XMLDOMParser();
		AssetManager manager = getAssets();
		InputStream stream;
		try {
			stream = manager.open("employee.xml");
			Document doc = parser.getDocument(stream);

			// Get elements by name employee
			NodeList nodeList = doc.getElementsByTagName(NODE_EMP);

			/*
			 * for each <employee> element get text of name, salary and
			 * designation
			 */
			// Here, we have only one <employee> element
			for (int i = 0; i < nodeList.getLength(); i++) {
				Element e = (Element) nodeList.item(i);
				nameText.setText(parser.getValue(e, NODE_NAME));
				salaryText.setText(parser.getValue(e, NODE_SALARY));
				designationText.setText(parser.getValue(e, NODE_DESIGNATION));
			}
		} catch (IOException e1) {
			e1.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
}

AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.theopentutorials.android.xml"
    android:versionCode="1"
    android:versionName="1.0" >

    <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="15" />

    <application
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name" >
        <activity
            android:name="com.theopentutorials.android.xml.DOMXMLParsingActivity"
            android:label="@string/app_name" >
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>
</manifest>

Output

Run your application

Project Folder Structure

The complete folder structure of this example is shown below.

Tags: Android 4 Examples, Android 4 icecream sandwich examples, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Examples, Android Activity, Android AssetManager, Android assets folder, Android DOM Parser Example, Android Examples, Android GridLayout, Android TextView, Android XML DOM parser, Android XML layout, Android XML parser example

JOE
bonsoir! le tuto m’a été d’une grande utilité mais j’aimerai aussi savoir comment récupérer des données tapés sur un Editext et les insérées dans ce fichier xml? j’ai deja ce fichier et j’aimerai inserer d’autre chose. Merçi!
Pranav
setContentView (R.Layout.main) cannot be resolved
Pranav
this really worked thank you so much
Carlos Daniel
Very usefull sample, thanks for share.
Mohammed Ahmad Osama
I have multiple employees; what should i do???

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Android: Simple XML DOM parser

Project Description

Environment Used

Prerequisites

Create Android Project

Create XML file

strings.xml

XML layout file

Create XMLDOMParser class

Create DOMXMLParsingActivity class

AndroidManifest.xml

Output

Project Folder Structure

Table of Contents

Popular Posts

Recent Comments

Views

Recent Posts

Android: Simple XML DOM parser

Project Description

Environment Used

Prerequisites

Create Android Project

Create XML file

strings.xml

XML layout file

Create XMLDOMParser class

Create DOMXMLParsingActivity class

AndroidManifest.xml

Output

Project Folder Structure

Related posts:

Table of Contents

Popular Posts

Recent Comments

Views

Recent Posts