How to Parse an XML Expression in java

Question

Suppose I have an XML statement as below:

<expression>
<refobj>[Sales Volume (Actual)]</refobj> - <refobj>[Sales Volume (Target)]</refobj>
</expression>

How can I parse this expression in Java? My Java output should be a String :

[Sales Volume (Actual)]-[Sales Volume (Target)]

I am parsing my XML file to java using DOM parser.

You would use a DocumentBuilderFactory to create a DocumentBuilder, and then use that to parse the XML into an instance of org.w3c.dom.Document. What have you written so far? — Jim Garrison
– Jim Garrison, Commented Nov 27, 2014 at 3:52
Hi, I am able to parse all the normal XML tags in Java, but this is an expression. I know how to retrieve [Sales Volume(Actual)] and [Sales Volume(Target)], but then how should I retrieve the minus sign from the XML expression in java? — user3509913
– user3509913, Commented Nov 27, 2014 at 4:43
Is dropping the whitespace around the hyphen intentional, and part of the requirement? — Michael Kay
– Michael Kay, Commented Nov 27, 2014 at 9:23

Michael Kay · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-27 09:30:04Z

1

You don't need to grovel around the nodes in the DOM in this way, you can use a simple XPath expression: normalize-space(/expression).

answered Nov 27, 2014 at 9:30

Michael Kay

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