how to extract values from an XML document using Javascript

Question

I am trying to extract values from the xml document and print them. I also want to count the number of children(child nodes) each node has.That is the first tag has 2 child and second tag has 3.

THIS IS THE XML DOCUMENT

<?xml version="1.0" ?> 
  <A>
  <a1>a1</a1> 
  <a2>a2</a2> 
  <B>
  <C>2</C> 
  <C>3</C> 
  </B>
  <B>
  <C>4</C> 
  <C>5</C> 
  <C>6</C>
  </B>
  </A>

THIS IS MY JAVASCRIPT DOCUMENT

if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
  {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
  xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
  }
else
  {// code for IE6, IE5
  xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  }
xmlhttp.open("GET","extractexample.xml",false);
xmlhttp.send();
xmlDoc=xmlhttp.responseXML;
xmlObj=xmlDoc.documentElement;
document.write(xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("B")[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue);

Are you getting the AJAX result? I mean, XML file in your xmlhttp.responseXML. Check with firebug. — JS Mitrah
– JS Mitrah, Commented Mar 24, 2011 at 7:51
hi if i write document.write(xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("C").length); This counts the total number of tags I get the output as 5 whichis correct but i want to seperately count number of child nodes of each tag . I dont know what code shall i write for it. — swati gupta
– swati gupta, Commented Mar 24, 2011 at 7:59

syockit · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-24 10:15:47Z

3

Element.childNodes method returns all types of nodes, including whitespace textnodes. It may not be what you want. If you only care for the number of child elements, use childElementCount.

var b = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("B")[0];
alert(b.childElementCount); //should output 2

I haven't tried in IE, it may not work. ~~Else, if you want a the element list, use children~~ children not supported on non HTML doc. You can try this function:

function getChildren(element) {
  var nodes = element.childNodes;
  var children = [];
  for (var i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) {
    if (nodes[i].nodeType == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) children.push(nodes[i]);
  }
  return children;
}

getChildren(b).length;

edited Mar 24, 2011 at 10:15

answered Mar 24, 2011 at 9:58

syockit

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