Create XML file using java

You can use Xembly, a small open source library that makes this XML creating process much more intuitive:

String xml = new Xembler(
  new Directives()
    .add("root")
    .add("order")
    .attr("id", "553")
    .set("$140.00")
).xml();

Xembly is a wrapper around native Java DOM, and is a very lightweight library (I'm the author).

Have look at dom4j or jdom. Both libraries allow creating a Document and allow printing the document as xml. Both are widly used, pretty easy to use and you'll find a lot of examples and snippets.

dom4j - Quick start guide

Just happened to work at this also, use https://www.tutorialspoint.com/java_xml/java_dom_create_document.htm the example from here, and read the explanations. Also I provide you my own example:

DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
        DocumentBuilder dBuilder = dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
        Document doc = dBuilder.newDocument();
        // root element


Element rootElement = doc.createElement("words");
            doc.appendChild(rootElement);
while (ptbt.hasNext()) {
                CoreLabel label = ptbt.next();
                System.out.println(label);

                m = r1.matcher(label.toString());
                //System.out.println(m.find());
                if (m.find() == true) {
                    Element w = doc.createElement("word");                  
                    w.appendChild(doc.createTextNode(label.toString()));
                    rootElement.appendChild(w);
                }

TransformerFactory transformerFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
        Transformer transformer = transformerFactory.newTransformer();
        DOMSource source = new DOMSource(doc);
        StreamResult result = new StreamResult(new File("C:\\Users\\workspace\\Tokenizer\\tokens.xml"));
        transformer.transform(source, result);
        // Output to console for testing
        StreamResult consoleResult = new StreamResult(System.out);
        transformer.transform(source, consoleResult);

This is in the context of using the tokenizer from Stanford for Natural Language Processing, just a part of it to make an idea on how to add elements. The output is: Billbuyedapples (I've read the sentence from a file)

I am providing an answer from my own blog. Hope this will help.

What will be output?

Following XML file named users.xml will be created.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?> 
<users>
    <user uid="1">
        <firstname>Interview</firstname>
        <lastname>Bubble</lastname>
        <email>[email protected]</email>
    </user>
</users>

PROCEDURE

Basic steps, in order to create an XML File with a DOM Parser, are:

1. Create a DocumentBuilder instance.

2. Create a Document from the above DocumentBuilder.

3. Create the elements you want using the Element class and its appendChild method.

4. Create a new Transformer instance and a new DOMSource instance.

5. Create a new StreamResult to the output stream you want to use.

6. Use transform method to write the DOM object to the output stream.

SOURCE CODE:

package com.example.TestApp;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
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.Element;

public class CreateXMLFileJava {

 public static void main(String[] args) throws ParserConfigurationException, 
                                               IOException, 
                                               TransformerException
    {
     // 1.Create a DocumentBuilder instance
    DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
    DocumentBuilder dbuilder = dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder();

    // 2. Create a Document from the above DocumentBuilder.
    Document document = dbuilder.newDocument();

    // 3. Create the elements you want using the Element class and its appendChild method.   

   // root element
    Element users = document.createElement("users");
    document.appendChild(users);   

    // child element
    Element user = document.createElement("user");
    users.appendChild(user);  

    // Attribute of child element
    user.setAttribute("uid", "1");   

    // firstname Element
    Element firstName = document.createElement("firstName");
    firstName.appendChild(document.createTextNode("Interview"));
    user.appendChild(firstName);   

    // lastName element
    Element lastName = document.createElement("lastName");
    lastName.appendChild(document.createTextNode("Bubble"));
    user.appendChild(lastName);   

    // email element
    Element email = document.createElement("email");
    email.appendChild(document.createTextNode("[email protected]"));
    user.appendChild(email);   

    // write content into xml file   

    // 4. Create a new Transformer instance and a new DOMSource instance.
   TransformerFactory transformerFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
   Transformer transformer = transformerFactory.newTransformer();
   DOMSource source = new DOMSource(document);

   // 5. Create a new StreamResult to the output stream you want to use.
   StreamResult result = new StreamResult(new File("/Users/admin/Desktop/users.xml"));
   // StreamResult result = new StreamResult(System.out); // to print on console

   // 6. Use transform method to write the DOM object to the output stream.
   transformer.transform(source, result);  

   System.out.println("File created successfully");
 }
}

OUTPUT:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<users>
  <user uid="1">
     <firstName>Interview</firstName>
     <lastName>Bubble</lastName>
     <email>[email protected]</email>
  </user>
</users>

You might want to give XStream a shot, it is not complicated. It basically does the heavy lifting.

I liked the Xembly syntax, but it is not a statically typed API. You can get this with XMLBeam:

// Declare a projection
public interface Projection {

    @XBWrite("/root/order/@id")
    Projection setID(int id);

    @XBWrite("/root/order")
    Projection setValue(String value);
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    // create a projector
    XBProjector projector = new XBProjector();

    // use it to create a projection instance
    Projection projection = projector.projectEmptyDocument(Projection.class);

    // You get a fluent API, with java types in parameters 
    projection.setID(553).setValue("$140.00");

    // Use the projector again to do IO stuff or create an XML-string
    projector.toXMLString(projection);
}

My experience is that this works great even when the XML gets more complicated. You can just decouple the XML structure from your java code structure.