Best way to convert xml to have CDATA around text (in java)

Question

I have a weird requirement where I need to take some xml and re-write it so that the text nodes are wrapped in CDATA (this is for a client that won\'t allow normal escaping).

Answer 1

Thanks for all of your answers. I found a way to do this using dom4j. My implementation does not work if elements have "mixed" children (i.e. text element), but in my case this isn't a problem. It works because dom4j will output CDATA if you add CDATA nodes:

    public void replaceTextWithCdataNoMixedText(Document doc) {
        if( doc == null )
            return;
        replaceTextWithCdata(doc.content());
    }

    private void replaceTextWithCdata(List content) {
        if (content == null)
            return;
        for (Object o : content) {
            if (o instanceof Element) {
                Element e = (Element) o;
                String t = e.getTextTrim();
                if (textNeedsEscaping(t)) {
                    e.clearContent();
                    e.addCDATA(t);
                } else {
                    List childContent = e.content();
                    replaceTextWithCdata(childContent);
                }
            }
        }
    }


    private boolean textNeedsEscaping(String t) {
        if (t == null)
            return false;
        for (int i = 0; i < t.length(); i++) {
            char c = t.charAt(i);
            if (c == '<' || c == '>' || c == '&') {
                return true;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }