How to read XML using XPath in Java

Question

I want to read XML data using XPath in Java, so for the information I have gathered I am not able to parse XML according to my requirement.

here is what I want to do

Answer 1

Read XML file using XPathFactory, SAXParserFactory and StAX (JSR-173).

Using XPath get node and its child data.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String xml = "<soapenv:Body xmlns:soapenv='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'>"
            + "<Yash:Data xmlns:Yash='http://Yash.stackoverflow.com/Services/Yash'>"
            + "<Yash:Tags>Java</Yash:Tags><Yash:Tags>Javascript</Yash:Tags><Yash:Tags>Selenium</Yash:Tags>"
            + "<Yash:Top>javascript</Yash:Top><Yash:User>Yash-777</Yash:User>"
            + "</Yash:Data></soapenv:Body>";
    String jsonNameSpaces = "{'soapenv':'http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/',"
            + "'Yash':'http://Yash.stackoverflow.com/Services/Yash'}";
    String xpathExpression = "//Yash:Data";

    Document doc1 = getDocument(false, "fileName", xml);
    getNodesFromXpath(doc1, xpathExpression, jsonNameSpaces);
    System.out.println("\n===== ***** =====");
    Document doc2 = getDocument(true, "./books.xml", xml);
    getNodesFromXpath(doc2, "//person", "{}");
}
static Document getDocument( boolean isFileName, String fileName, String xml ) {
    Document doc = null;
    try {

        DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
        factory.setValidating(false);
        factory.setNamespaceAware(true);
        factory.setIgnoringComments(true);
        factory.setIgnoringElementContentWhitespace(true);

        DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
        if( isFileName ) {
            File file = new File( fileName );
            FileInputStream stream = new FileInputStream( file );
            doc = builder.parse( stream );
        } else {
            doc = builder.parse( string2Source( xml ) );
        }
    } catch (SAXException | IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (ParserConfigurationException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return doc;
}

/**
 * ELEMENT_NODE[1],ATTRIBUTE_NODE[2],TEXT_NODE[3],CDATA_SECTION_NODE[4],
 * ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE[5],ENTITY_NODE[6],PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE[7],
 * COMMENT_NODE[8],DOCUMENT_NODE[9],DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE[10],DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE[11],NOTATION_NODE[12]
 */
public static void getNodesFromXpath( Document doc, String xpathExpression, String jsonNameSpaces ) {
    try {
        XPathFactory xpf = XPathFactory.newInstance();
        XPath xpath = xpf.newXPath();

        JSONObject namespaces = getJSONObjectNameSpaces(jsonNameSpaces);
        if ( namespaces.size() > 0 ) {
            NamespaceContextImpl nsContext = new NamespaceContextImpl();

            Iterator<?> key = namespaces.keySet().iterator();
            while (key.hasNext()) { // Apache WebServices Common Utilities
                String pPrefix = key.next().toString();
                String pURI = namespaces.get(pPrefix).toString();
                nsContext.startPrefixMapping(pPrefix, pURI);
            }
            xpath.setNamespaceContext(nsContext );
        }

        XPathExpression compile = xpath.compile(xpathExpression);
        NodeList nodeList = (NodeList) compile.evaluate(doc, XPathConstants.NODESET);
        displayNodeList(nodeList);
    } catch (XPathExpressionException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

static void displayNodeList( NodeList nodeList ) {
    for (int i = 0; i < nodeList.getLength(); i++) {
        Node node = nodeList.item(i);
        String NodeName = node.getNodeName();

        NodeList childNodes = node.getChildNodes();
        if ( childNodes.getLength() > 1 ) {
            for (int j = 0; j < childNodes.getLength(); j++) {

                Node child = childNodes.item(j);
                short nodeType = child.getNodeType();
                if ( nodeType == 1 ) {
                    System.out.format( "\n\t Node Name:[%s], Text[%s] ", child.getNodeName(), child.getTextContent() );
                }
            }
        } else {
            System.out.format( "\n Node Name:[%s], Text[%s] ", NodeName, node.getTextContent() );
        }

    }
}
static InputSource string2Source( String str ) {
    InputSource inputSource = new InputSource( new StringReader( str ) );
    return inputSource;
}
static JSONObject getJSONObjectNameSpaces( String jsonNameSpaces ) {
    if(jsonNameSpaces.indexOf("'") > -1)    jsonNameSpaces = jsonNameSpaces.replace("'", "\"");
    JSONParser parser = new JSONParser();
    JSONObject namespaces = null;
    try {
        namespaces = (JSONObject) parser.parse(jsonNameSpaces);
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return namespaces;
}

XML Document

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<book>
<person>
  <first>Yash</first>
  <last>M</last>
  <age>22</age>
</person>
<person>
  <first>Bill</first>
  <last>Gates</last>
  <age>46</age>
</person>
<person>
  <first>Steve</first>
  <last>Jobs</last>
  <age>40</age>
</person>
</book>

Out put for the given XPathExpression:

String xpathExpression = "//person/first";
/*OutPut:
 Node Name:[first], Text[Yash] 
 Node Name:[first], Text[Bill] 
 Node Name:[first], Text[Steve] */

String xpathExpression = "//person";
/*OutPut:
     Node Name:[first], Text[Yash] 
     Node Name:[last], Text[M] 
     Node Name:[age], Text[22] 
     Node Name:[first], Text[Bill] 
     Node Name:[last], Text[Gates] 
     Node Name:[age], Text[46] 
     Node Name:[first], Text[Steve] 
     Node Name:[last], Text[Jobs] 
     Node Name:[age], Text[40] */

String xpathExpression = "//Yash:Data";
/*OutPut:
     Node Name:[Yash:Tags], Text[Java] 
     Node Name:[Yash:Tags], Text[Javascript] 
     Node Name:[Yash:Tags], Text[Selenium] 
     Node Name:[Yash:Top], Text[javascript] 
     Node Name:[Yash:User], Text[Yash-777] */

See this link for our own Implementation of NamespaceContext

Answer 2

Here is an example of processing xpath with vtd-xml... for heavy duty XML processing it is second to none. here is the a recent paper on this subject Processing XML with Java – A Performance Benchmark

import com.ximpleware.*;

public class changeAttrVal {
    public  static  void main(String s[]) throws VTDException,java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException,java.io.IOException{
        VTDGen vg = new VTDGen();
        if (!vg.parseFile("input.xml", false))
            return;
        VTDNav vn = vg.getNav();
        AutoPilot ap = new AutoPilot(vn);
        XMLModifier xm = new XMLModifier(vn);
        ap.selectXPath("/*/place[@id=\"p14\" and   @initialMarking=\"2\"]/@initialMarking");
        int i=0;
        while((i=ap.evalXPath())!=-1){
            xm.updateToken(i+1, "499");// change initial marking from 2 to 499
        }
        xm.output("new.xml");
    }

}