XML Node to String in Java

Question

I came across this piece of Java function to convert an XML node to a Java String representation:

private String nodeToString(Node node) {     StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();     try {         Transformer t = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();         t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.OMIT_XML_DECLARATION, "yes");         t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");         t.transform(new DOMSource(node), new StreamResult(sw));     } catch (TransformerException te) {         System.out.println("nodeToString Transformer Exception");     }     return sw.toString(); } 

It looks straightforward in that it wants the output string doesn't have any XML declaration and it must contain indentation.

But I wonder how the actual output should be, suppose I have an XML node:

<p><media type="audio" id="au008093" rights="wbowned"> <title>Bee buzz</title> </media>Most other kinds of bees live alone instead of in a colony. These bees make tunnels in wood or in the ground. The queen makes her own nest.</p> 

Could I assume the resulting String after applying the above transformation is:

"media type="audio" id="au008093" rights="wbowned" title Bee buzz title /media" 

I want to test it myself, but I have no idea on how to represent this XML node in the way this function actually wants.

I am bit confused, and thanks in advance for the generous help.

Answer 1

All important has already been said. I tried to compile the following code.

  import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream; import java.io.InputStream; import java.io.StringWriter;  import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder; import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory; import javax.xml.transform.OutputKeys; import javax.xml.transform.Transformer; import javax.xml.transform.TransformerException; import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory; import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource; import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;  import org.w3c.dom.Document; import org.w3c.dom.Node;  public class Test {    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {      String s =        "<p>" +       "  <media type=\"audio\" id=\"au008093\" rights=\"wbowned\">" +       "    <title>Bee buzz</title>" +       "  " +       "  Most other kinds of bees live alone instead of in a colony." +       "  These bees make tunnels in wood or in the ground." +       "  The queen makes her own nest." +       "</p>";     InputStream is = new ByteArrayInputStream(s.getBytes());      DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();     DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();     Document d = db.parse(is);      Node rootElement = d.getDocumentElement();     System.out.println(nodeToString(rootElement));    }    private static String nodeToString(Node node) {     StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();     try {       Transformer t = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();       t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.OMIT_XML_DECLARATION, "yes");       t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");       t.transform(new DOMSource(node), new StreamResult(sw));     } catch (TransformerException te) {       System.out.println("nodeToString Transformer Exception");     }     return sw.toString();   }  }  

And it produced the following output:

  <p>  <media id="au008093" rights="wbowned" type="audio">    <title>Bee buzz</title>  </media>  Most other kinds of bees live alone instead of in a colony.  These bees make tunnels in wood or in the ground.  The queen makes her own nest.</p>  

You can further tweak it by yourself. Good luck!