Android Dev: Parsing a XML file

Question

Here is a snippet from the XML file I am trying to parse:

<Item xsi:type="TextureItem" Name="Texture_0044" Visible="true">
    <Position>
        <X>240</X>
        <Y>432</Y>
    </Position>
    <CustomProperties>
        <Property Name="type" Type="string" Description="slot_rectangle">
            <string />
        </Property>
    </CustomProperties>
    <Rotation>0</Rotation>
    <Scale>
        <X>1</X>
        <Y>1</Y>
    </Scale>
    <TintColor>
        <R>255</R>
        <G>255</G>
        <B>255</B>
        <A>255</A>
        <PackedValue>4294967295</PackedValue>
    </TintColor>
</Item>

I'm using an XmlResourceParser object to parse the XML file and here is my code so far:

XmlResourceParser xrp = context.getResources().getXml(R.xml.level_1);

int eventType = xrp.getEventType();
while (eventType != XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT) {
    if(eventType == XmlPullParser.START_DOCUMENT) {
        //System.out.println("Start document");
    } else if(eventType == XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {
        //System.out.println("Start tag "+xrp.getName());
        if (xrp.getName().equals("Item")) {
            //...
        }
    } else if(eventType == XmlPullParser.END_TAG) {
        //System.out.println("End tag "+xrp.getName());
    } else if(eventType == XmlPullParser.TEXT) {
        //System.out.println("Text "+xrp.getText());
    }
    eventType = xrp.next();
}
System.out.println("End document");
xrp.close();

What I'm trying to do is have it so that every time a Item tag is found it will get the "Description" value of the Property tag, the text values of the X and Y tags inside the Position tag, and the text value of the Rotation tag and nothing more.

Right now I'm considering where it says if (xrp.getName().equals("Item")) just copying and pasting the outside parsing code to the inside of that if condition and then going up and down in levels getting the values I want until the END_TAG for the Item tag event occurs, but that seems very inefficient and confusing.

What I want sort of is like a xrp.Item.Position.X.getText() sort of deal if you know what I mean, does something like that exist?

Thanks!

"sort of is like a xrp.Item.Position.X.getText()". What you describe there is similar to XPath. You could look at this to see if it helps...w3schools.com/xpath/xpath_syntax.asp - it is supported in Android with this packahe developer.android.com/reference/javax/xml/xpath/… The downside is it requires the entire XML document to be loaded so if the document is large, it can cause performance problems or "out of memory" problems. — Squonk
– Squonk, Commented May 31, 2011 at 4:37

dmon · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-31 04:45:28Z

2

You're on the right track. Just create an object model that maps to what you expect and fill it in as you parse the XML. You'll be better off having a light-weight representation of the data instead of trying to use xpath as you need values.

answered May 31, 2011 at 4:45

dmon

30.2k8 gold badges90 silver badges96 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Kyle V. Over a year ago

Thank you, what I ended up doing was rougly the same as your solution.

Robert Massaioli Over a year ago

Or you could use simple-XML and avoid all of this boilerplate code. Just a suggestion; it is much better. Just take a look at it.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Android Dev: Parsing a XML file

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related