How to parse an RSS feed with XmlPullParser?

Question

I would like to parse a RSS feed. My question is how I can parse all tags between the <item>and </item> tags.

Given this very simple XML:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
  <title>MyRSSPage</title>
  <link>http://www.example.com</link>
  <item>
  <link>www.example.com/example1</link>
  <title>Example title 1</title>
  </item>
  <item>
  <link>www.example.com/example2</link>
  <title>Example title 2</title>
  </item>
</channel>
</rss>

I would like to parse just the stuff between the <item>...</item> tags.

            List<RssMessage> messages = new ArrayList<RssMessage>();

            // parser is a XmlPullParser instance
            while(parser.next() != XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT) {
                if (parser.getEventType() != XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {
                    continue;
                }
            String name = parser.getName();
            // START OF HEADER
            if(name.equals("title")) {
                title = parser.nextText();
            }
            else if(name.equals("link")) {
                link = parser.nextText();
            }
            else if(name.equals("description")) {
                description = parser.nextText();
            }
            else if(name.equals("language")) {
                language = parser.nextText();
            }
            else if(name.equals("copyright")) {
                copyright = parser.nextText();
            }
            else if(name.equals("pubDate")) {
                pubdate = parser.nextText();
            }
            // END OF HEADER

            else if(name.equals("item")) {
                RssMessage rssMessage = processItem(parser);
                messages.add(rssMessage);
            }
        }

In the below method I would like to just parse the tags within the <item>...</item>tags. How do I construct a loop that just goes through the item between <item> and </item>?

EDIT
This is almost working. But sometimes not all elements are initiated even if the corresponding element in the RSS xml DO exist! Is something wrong with the below code?

private RssMessage processItem(XmlPullParser parser) throws IOException, XmlPullParserException {
        RssMessage rssMessage = new RssMessage();
    parser.require(XmlPullParser.START_TAG, ns, "item");
    while (parser.next() != XmlPullParser.END_TAG) {
        if (parser.getEventType() != XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {
            continue;
        }
        String name = parser.getName();
        if(name.equals("link")) {
            rssMessage.setLink(parser.nextText());
        }
        else if(name.equals("guid")) {
            rssMessage.setGuid(parser.nextText());
        }
        else if(name.equals("category")) {
            rssMessage.setCategory(parser.nextText());
        }
        else if(name.equals("title")) {
            rssMessage.setTitle(parser.nextText());
        }
        else if(name.equals("pubDate")) {
            rssMessage.setPubDate(parser.nextText());
        }
    }
    return rssMessage;
    }

Nothing is wrong except that I don´t know how to parse the tags just between <item>and </item>. — Rox
– Rox, Commented Jul 2, 2013 at 19:35

Bill Lynch · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-17 22:02:01Z

12

Try the below.

try {
    XmlPullParserFactory factory = XmlPullParserFactory.newInstance();
    factory.setNamespaceAware(false);
    XmlPullParser xpp = factory.newPullParser();
    xpp.setInput(url.openConnection().getInputStream(), "UTF_8"); 
    //xpp.setInput(getInputStream(url), "UTF-8");

    boolean insideItem = false;

    // Returns the type of current event: START_TAG, END_TAG, etc..
    int eventType = xpp.getEventType();
    while (eventType != XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT) {
        if (eventType == XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {

            if (xpp.getName().equalsIgnoreCase("item")) {
                insideItem = true;
            } 
            else if(xpp.getName().equalsIgnoreCase("title")) 
            {

            }
        }
        eventType = xpp.next(); //move to next element
    }

} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
} catch (XmlPullParserException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Edit:

XmlPullParserFactory factory = XmlPullParserFactory.newInstance();
factory.setNamespaceAware(false);
XmlPullParser xpp = factory.newPullParser();
xpp.setInput(open,null);
// xpp.setInput(getInputStream(url), "UTF-8");

boolean insideItem = false;

// Returns the type of current event: START_TAG, END_TAG, etc..
int eventType = xpp.getEventType();
while (eventType != XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT) {
    if (eventType == XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {

        if (xpp.getName().equalsIgnoreCase("item")) {
            insideItem = true;
        } else if (xpp.getName().equalsIgnoreCase("title")) {
            if (insideItem)
                Log.i("....",xpp.nextText()); // extract the headline
        } else if (xpp.getName().equalsIgnoreCase("link")) {
            if (insideItem)
                Log.i("....",xpp.nextText());  // extract the link of article
        }
    } else if (eventType == XmlPullParser.END_TAG && xpp.getName().equalsIgnoreCase("item")) {
        insideItem = false;
    }

    eventType = xpp.next(); // move to next element
}

Output

www.example.com/example1
Example title 1
www.example.com/example2
Example title 2

edited Jun 17, 2014 at 22:02

Bill Lynch

82.4k16 gold badges132 silver badges181 bronze badges

answered Jul 2, 2013 at 19:43

Raghunandan

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9 Comments

Rox Over a year ago

Have a look at my edit in my post above. My question is rather about how I may parse the elements between the <item> and </item> tags.

Raghunandan Over a year ago

try the edit. it should work. developer.android.com/reference/org/xmlpull/v1/…

NagarjunaReddy Over a year ago

@Raghunandan can you send me any lin for between the <item> and </item> tags example

NagarjunaReddy Over a year ago

@Raghunandan can you explain little bit more example for this

Raghunandan Over a year ago

@NagarjunaReddy where do you need explanation. Also you can copy the xml to assests fodler and use the same that op has in the question

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