How to update xml files in java

Question

I have a xml file call data.xml like the code below. The project can run from client side no problem and it can read the xml file. The problem I have now is I I want to write a function that can update the startdate and enddate. I have no idea how to get start. Help will be appreciated.

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<data>
       <username>admin</username>
       <password>12345</password>
       <interval>1</interval>
       <timeout>90</timeout>
       <startdate>01/01/2013</startdate>
       <enddate>06/01/2013</enddate>
       <ttime>1110</ttime>
    </data>

my main.java

    public class main
    {
     public static void main(String[] args) 
      {
          Calendar cal2 =null;

    try {   

              //read the xml      
              File data = new File("data.xml");  
              DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();         
              DocumentBuilder dBuilder = dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder();           
              Document doc = dBuilder.parse(data);         
              doc.getDocumentElement().normalize();

     for (int i = 0; i < nodes.getLength(); i++) {     
              Node node = nodes.item(i);           
                if (node.getNodeType() == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) {     
                    Element element = (Element) node;   
                    username = getValue("username", element);
                    startdate = getValue("startdate", element);
                    enddate = getValue("enddate", element);
                  }
       }


  date = startdate; 
  Date date_int = new SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy", Locale.ENGLISH).parse(date); 
  cal2 = Calendar.getInstance(); 
 cal2.setTime(date_int); 


     //loop the child node to update the initial date
              for (int i = 0; i < nodes.getLength(); i++) {    
                  Node node = nodes.item(i);           
                    if (node.getNodeType() == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) {     
                        Element element = (Element) node;

                        setValue("startdate", element , date_int.toString());
                  }
              }

            //write the content in xml file
                TransformerFactory transformerFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
                Transformer transformer = transformerFactory.newTransformer();
                DOMSource source = new DOMSource(doc);
                StreamResult result = new StreamResult(new File("data.xml"));
                transformer.transform(source, result);

        } catch (Exception ex) {    
          log.error(ex.getMessage());       
          ex.printStackTrace();       
        }
    }


      private static void setValue(String tag, Element element , String input) {  
            NodeList nodes = element.getElementsByTagName(tag).item(0).getChildNodes();   
            Node node = (Node) nodes.item(0); 
            node.setTextContent(input);

    }

Answer 1

Start by loading the XML file...

DocumentBuilderFactory f = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder b = f.newDocumentBuilder();
Document doc = b.parse(new File("Data.xml"));

Now, there are a few ways to do this, but simply, you can use the xpath API to find the nodes you want and update their content

XPath xPath = XPathFactory.newInstance().newXPath();
Node startDateNode = (Node) xPath.compile("/data/startdate").evaluate(doc, XPathConstants.NODE);
startDateNode.setTextContent("29/07/2015");

xPath = XPathFactory.newInstance().newXPath();
Node endDateNode = (Node) xPath.compile("/data/enddate").evaluate(doc, XPathConstants.NODE);
endDateNode.setTextContent("29/07/2015");

Then save the Document back to the file...

Transformer tf = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
tf.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");
tf.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.METHOD, "xml");
tf.setOutputProperty("{http://xml.apache.org/xslt}indent-amount", "4");

DOMSource domSource = new DOMSource(doc);
StreamResult sr = new StreamResult(new File("Data.xml"));
tf.transform(domSource, sr);