How to parse a String containing XML in Java and retrieve the value of the root node?

Question

I have XML in the form of a String that contains

<message>HELLO!</message>  

How can I get the String "Hello!" from the XML? It should be ridiculously easy but I am lost. The XML isn't in a doc, it is simply a String.

Answer 1

Using JDOM:

String xml = "<message>HELLO!</message>"; org.jdom.input.SAXBuilder saxBuilder = new SAXBuilder(); try {     org.jdom.Document doc = saxBuilder.build(new StringReader(xml));     String message = doc.getRootElement().getText();     System.out.println(message); } catch (JDOMException e) {     // handle JDOMException } catch (IOException e) {     // handle IOException } 

Using the Xerces DOMParser:

String xml = "<message>HELLO!</message>"; DOMParser parser = new DOMParser(); try {     parser.parse(new InputSource(new java.io.StringReader(xml)));     Document doc = parser.getDocument();     String message = doc.getDocumentElement().getTextContent();     System.out.println(message); } catch (SAXException e) {     // handle SAXException  } catch (IOException e) {     // handle IOException  } 

Using the JAXP interfaces:

String xml = "<message>HELLO!</message>"; DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance(); DocumentBuilder db = null; try {     db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();     InputSource is = new InputSource();     is.setCharacterStream(new StringReader(xml));     try {         Document doc = db.parse(is);         String message = doc.getDocumentElement().getTextContent();         System.out.println(message);     } catch (SAXException e) {         // handle SAXException     } catch (IOException e) {         // handle IOException     } } catch (ParserConfigurationException e1) {     // handle ParserConfigurationException }