Difficulty with XML nested tags with XMLPullParser in Android

Question

I'm trying to get the name and reading type="alpha".

I'm a beginner and English is not my first language, please pardon me. I've read about DOM, SAX, Simple, other StackOverflow posts, other samples but I don't understand and will like to learn about XMLPullParser in this case.

Sample XML below:

<feed>
    <title>Title</title>
    <item>

    <entry>
        <name>Name1</name>
        <record date="20001231">
            <reading type="alpha" value="100"/>
            <reading type="beta" value="200"/>
        </record>
    </entry>

    <entry>
        <name>Name2</name>
        <record date="20001231">
            <reading type="alpha" value="300"/>
            <reading type="beta" value="400"/>
        </record>
    </entry>

    </item>
</feed>

I've read this: http://developer.android.com/training/basics/network-ops/xml.html and the sample code works for the sample XML above without the <item> tags to get the name and record date.

private List<Entry> readFeed(XmlPullParser parser) throws XmlPullParserException, IOException {
    List<Entry> entries = new ArrayList<Entry>();

    parser.require(XmlPullParser.START_TAG, ns, "feed");
    while (parser.next() != XmlPullParser.END_TAG) {
        if (parser.getEventType() != XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {
            continue;
        }

        if (parser.getName().equals("entry")) {
            entries.add(readEntry(parser));
        } else {
            skip(parser);
        }
    }
    return entries;
}

What I've tried with the presence of <item> tags (but does not work) is:

private List<Entry> readFeed(XmlPullParser parser) throws XmlPullParserException, IOException {
    List<Entry> entries = new ArrayList<Entry>();

    parser.require(XmlPullParser.START_TAG, ns, "feed");
    while (parser.next() != XmlPullParser.END_TAG) {
        if (parser.getEventType() != XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {
            continue;
        }

        if (parser.getName().equals("item")) {

            parser.next();

            while (parser.next() != XmlPullParser.END_TAG) {
                if (parser.getEventType() != XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {
                    continue;
                }

                if (parser.getName().equals("entry")) {
                    entries.add(readEntry(parser));
                } else {
                    skip(parser);
                }
            }

        } else {
            skip(parser);
        }
    }
    return entries;
}

If I can solve that, I will be able to read the name and record date, but what I'm trying to get is the name and reading type="alpha", which I don't know how to get the nested reading type="alpha".

Many thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can try this function

 private List readFeed(XmlPullParser parser) throws XmlPullParserException, IOException {
    List entries = new ArrayList();

    parser.require(XmlPullParser.START_TAG, ns, "feed");
    while (parser.next() != XmlPullParser.END_TAG) {
        if (parser.getEventType() != XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {
            continue;
        }
        String name = parser.getName();
        // Starts by looking for the item tag
        if (name.equals("item")) {
            parser.require(XmlPullParser.START_TAG, ns, "item");
            while (parser.next() != XmlPullParser.END_TAG) {
                if (parser.getEventType() != XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {
                    continue;
                }
                // and then get the entry here
                if (name.equals("entry")) {
                    entries.add(readEntry(parser));
                }
            }
        } else {
            skip(parser);
        }
    }  
    return entries;
}

Where readEntry Function is :

private Entry readEntry(XmlPullParser parser) throws XmlPullParserException, IOException {
    parser.require(XmlPullParser.START_TAG, ns, "entry");
    String name = null;
    Record record = null;
    while (parser.next() != XmlPullParser.END_TAG) {
        if (parser.getEventType() != XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {
            continue;
        }
        String name = parser.getName();
        if (name.equals("name")) {
            parser.require(XmlPullParser.START_TAG, ns, "name");
            String title = readText(parser);
            parser.require(XmlPullParser.END_TAG, ns, "name");
        } else if (name.equals("record")) {
            // Try to figure it out by yourself for practice ;)
        } else {
            skip(parser);
        }
    }
    return new Entry(title, summary, link);
}