Question

update xml document using java

Asked by: anup001

how do I update an xml file using java. I just want to update a tag value that is already existing. For example the tag is

<name>xyz</test>

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2007-09-05 at 13:39:30ID22809104
Tags

java

,

xml

,

update

,

using

Topics

JAXP & SAX (XML APIs)

,

Extensible Markup Language (XML)

,

New to Java Programming

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
21

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. XML with JAVA
    How is XML linked to Java
  2. Xml To java
    I want the solution for converting Xml tags to java and storing the data into database Oracle.send feed back
  3. java with xml
    Hi I've never really worked with java-xml....basically i need to create and xml document form data in a table and post this to an external website as a request...The site then returns a response for the request and i need to parse it and update the data in my database... ...
  4. Best design of a Java project for checking xml files for valid…
    I am a student and am just starting to use Java. I am trying to develop a test in Java that will parse xml files and then check some of the tags/elements against another file. Not sure what the correct OO way to approach this would be. I'm just trying to figure out the be...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-05 at 21:32:06ID: 19837649

that isnt valid xml ... also, most parsers wont allow you to change the tag name. you could consider using xsl to transform a document into a what you need.

the following has an example of how to get things done with xsl. http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/javax.xml.transform/BasicXsl.html

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-05 at 21:43:47ID: 19837685

having re-read this, it may be that you only want to update the text content, i.e. 'xyz' in your example? if that is the case, that is fairly straightforward. example in this case is derived from http://javaalmanac.com/

    import java.io.*;
    import javax.xml.parsers.*;
    import org.w3c.dom.*;
    import org.xml.sax.*;
   
    public class BasicDom {
        public static void main(String[] args) {
            Document doc = parseXmlFile("infilename.xml", false);
            // Obtain a node
            Element element = (Element)doc.getElementsByTagName("name").item(0);
            // set the textContent
            element.setTextContent("my new text");
            // write to a file
            // refer to http://java.sun.com/webservices/jaxp/dist/1.1/docs/tutorial/xslt/2_write.html
        }
   
        // Parses an XML file and returns a DOM document.
        // If validating is true, the contents is validated against the DTD
        // specified in the file.
        public static Document parseXmlFile(String filename, boolean validating) {
            try {
                // Create a builder factory
                DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
                factory.setValidating(validating);
   
                // Create the builder and parse the file
                Document doc = factory.newDocumentBuilder().parse(new File(filename));
                return doc;
            } catch (SAXException e) {
                // A parsing error occurred; the xml input is not valid
            } catch (ParserConfigurationException e) {
            } catch (IOException e) {
            }
            return null;
        }
    }

 

by: anup001Posted on 2007-09-06 at 01:13:10ID: 19838328

yes sorry i mistyped it, i just want to update the value i.e xyz.

the ccorrect xml is

<name>xyz</name>

 

by: anup001Posted on 2007-09-06 at 02:08:07ID: 19838566

element.setTextContent("my new text"); does not seem to be working. It does not do anything.

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-06 at 05:34:21ID: 19839460

replace
     element.setTextContent("my new text");

with the following:

Node parent = element.getParentNode();
parent.removeChild(element);
element.setTextContent("my new text");
parent.appendChild(element);

 

by: anup001Posted on 2007-09-06 at 09:45:04ID: 19841696

i get this error

GetRootNode.java:43: cannot resolve symbol
symbol  : method setTextContent (java.lang.String)
location: interface org.w3c.dom.Element
element.setTextContent("my new text");

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-06 at 09:47:36ID: 19841722

can you post all of your code?

 

by: anup001Posted on 2007-09-06 at 10:02:30ID: 19841866


import org.w3c.dom.*;
import javax.xml.parsers.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.net.URL;

import java.lang.Object;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.*;

import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.Source;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;

import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.Text;

public class GetRootNode{
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    try{
     BufferedReader bf = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));

      File file = new File("filename.xml");
      if (file.exists()){
        DocumentBuilderFactory fact = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
        DocumentBuilder builder = fact.newDocumentBuilder();
        Document doc = builder.parse("filename.xml");
        Node node = doc.getDocumentElement();
        String root = node.getNodeName();
        System.out.println("Root Node: " + root);            
      Element element = (Element)doc.getElementsByTagName("NAME").item(0);
      
Node parent = element.getParentNode();
parent.removeChild(element);
element.setTextContent("my new text");
parent.appendChild(element);

      System.out.println("Node Name"+ element.getNodeName());
            
      TransformerFactory tranFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
    Transformer aTransformer = tranFactory.newTransformer();
   
    Source src = new DOMSource(doc);
   
    javax.xml.transform.Result dest = new StreamResult(file);
    aTransformer.transform(src, dest);
              System.out.println("Changed Element: " + element);
                    System.out.println("ya "+element.getChildNodes().getLength());
                    System.out.println("no "+element.getChildNodes());
                              
      }
      else{
        System.out.println("File not found!");
      }
    }
    catch(Exception e){}
  }
}

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-06 at 10:10:06ID: 19841938

you are probably using java 1.4 ... try element.setNodeValue("my new text"); instead of element.setTextContent("my new text");

 

by: anup001Posted on 2007-09-06 at 10:20:52ID: 19842010

And this <NAME> tag is in the root node. If i ahev to update a tag value that is within a tag, how do i do it?

<ADDRESS>
         <CITY>
                      abc city
         </CITY>
</ADDRESS>

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-06 at 10:23:39ID: 19842031

assuming that their is only one node with that name, do
    getElementsByTagName("NAME").item(0);
if there are more, you will have to iterate over them
read http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/org/w3c/dom/Element.html, specifically getElementsByTagName()

 

by: anup001Posted on 2007-09-06 at 10:27:16ID: 19842060

ok wil try that for node within node however

element.setNodeValue("my new text");  does not work. I tried that yesterday also. is there any other work around?

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-06 at 10:32:55ID: 19842102

an alternative would be to try the method createTextNode() [http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/org.w3c.dom/AddText.html, http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/org/w3c/dom/Document.html].

Also, if its possible, can you upgrade to java 1.5?

 

by: anup001Posted on 2007-09-06 at 10:34:06ID: 19842113

so if i try to use this it works but it does not replace the old value. It only appends to the existing value. Can we replace the old value using this?


 Text text = doc.createTextNode("test123");
  text.setData("hello");
  element.appendChild(text);

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-06 at 10:35:51ID: 19842128

Element element = (Element)doc.getElementsByTagName("NAME").item(0);
Node parent = element.getParentNode();
parent.removeChild(element);
Text text = doc.createTextNode("test123");
text.setData("hello");
parent.appendChild(text);

 

by: anup001Posted on 2007-09-06 at 10:45:11ID: 19842202

it is removing the tag but not putting it back again.

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-06 at 10:48:37ID: 19842237

is this what you want?

Element element = (Element)doc.getElementsByTagName("NAME").item(0);
Node parent = element.getParentNode();
parent.removeChild(element);
Text text = doc.createTextNode(element.getTagName()); // set name to be old name ...
text.setData("hello");
parent.appendChild(text);

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-06 at 10:51:11ID: 19842262

the only problem with that is now if the node that you are setting the text to contains other nodes, they will disappear ... if you insist on using java 1.4, you should download  Xerces-J and place the libraries in your <java-home>\lib\endorsed directory...

Then use the original method that i stated above, namely setTextContent ...

 

by: anup001Posted on 2007-09-06 at 10:54:18ID: 19842290

cool let me try that thanks a lot for all the info.

 

by: anup001Posted on 2007-09-06 at 11:04:35ID: 19842361

so is there somethign i need to importafter puting these xerces libraries in the java home?

 

by: kawasPosted on 2007-09-06 at 11:07:05ID: 19842380

import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;
import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;

import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
import javax.xml.transform.OutputKeys;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerConfigurationException;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerException;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamSource;

are the imports that I used when i followed the method that i stated above ...

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...