Storing XPath query xml in string issue

Question

I am having a problem of storing the string that I have build with DOM and queried with xpath. Here is some reference that I have used in my code Google and Sample

public static String getRoute() throws Exception {
    String xPathString = "//text() ";
    String nodeString = "";
    String notags = null;

    XPathFactory factory = XPathFactory.newInstance();

    XPath xpath = factory.newXPath();

//URL and HTTP connection here



InputStream inputXml = connection.getInputStream();
            DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
            DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
            Document doc = db.parse(inputXml);

            NodeList nodes = (NodeList) xpath.evaluate(xPathString, doc, XPathConstants.NODESET);

            for (int i = 0, n = nodes.getLength(); i < n; i++) {

                nodeString = nodes.item(i).getTextContent();
                notags = nodeString.replaceAll("<[^>]*>", "");
                System.out.print(notags + "\n");

            } 
        } catch (XPathExpressionException ex) {
            System.out.print("XPath Error");
        }

        return notags;

The code seems to printed out with System.out.print(notags + "\n"); within the try and catch block, however when I try to get the method and do system printout with:

public static void main (String[] args) {
     try {
      System.out.println(getRoute());  
    } catch (Exception e) {
        System.out.println(e);
    }
 }

I only able to get the last line of the output instead of the whole String.

Where are you assigning a value to notags? It looks like it's assigned to null at the top and stays that way. I also don't see where inputXPath is defined or xPathString is used, but that's probably a moot point. — JLRishe
– JLRishe, Commented Jan 10, 2013 at 15:09
sorry my bad, I've pasted the wrong code from a test class. EDITED. — Ket
– Ket, Commented Jan 10, 2013 at 16:13

JLRishe · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-10 16:56:48Z

2

As I suspected, in this line:

notags = nodeString.replaceAll("<[^>]*>", "");

you are completely overwriting notags during every iteration of the loop. You need to do this:

notags += nodeString.replaceAll("<[^>]*>", "");

to add a line break between each line, you can do this:

notags += nodeString.replaceAll("<[^>]*>", "") + "\n";

and in order either of those to work, you also need to change this:

String notags = null;

to this:

String notags = "";

Are you sure that that replaceAll() is necessary? I would expect nodeString to already not have any <s or >s, because you are selecting text nodes.

edited Jan 10, 2013 at 16:56

answered Jan 10, 2013 at 15:14

JLRishe

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2 Comments

Ket Over a year ago

For some reason DOM doesn't recognise <b> or </b> tags, as I get those tags in the output. Wow that + (loop) makes the whole difference. I am now able to get output from it :) thanks. 1 more question how do you give create lines for the output because the current output is printed in one line. again thanks for your help.

JLRishe Over a year ago

That's odd. Perhaps the <b> tags are part of the text values rather than actual text. At any rate, I've modified my post to answer your question.

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