Handling empty xml tags using java

Question

i have an xml as below.

<stat>
    <Parents>
        <Parent>
            <parentName></parentName>
            <occupation></occupation>
        </Parent>
        <Parent>
            <parentName>Brian</parentName>
            <occupation>Doctor</occupation>
        </Parent>
    </Parents>
     <Parents/>
    <Parents>
        <Parent>
            <parentName></parentName>
            <occupation></occupation>
        </Parent>
        <Parent/>
    </Parents>
</stat>

I need to validate the xml file using java in based on the parents values.When ever the xml file contains empty parents block for e.g: <Parents/> or <Parents> <Parent><parentName></parentName><occupation></occupation></Parent></Parents>.I need to throw an exception saying xml is not valid.How to implement the requirment using either xpath or some approach with out performance issue. Your help appreciated.

You could do this with regex easily. Try it out and then let's see how we can help. — Amir Raminfar
– Amir Raminfar, Commented Jul 5, 2011 at 18:37
First Link of google search (xpath get nodes with empty text) looks useful. — Atreys
– Atreys, Commented Jul 5, 2011 at 18:44
No, please do NOT even think of using regexps. XML should be handled with XML tools, since raw textual representation != logical model. Besides, regexps actually can not easily even deal with matching of start/end tags; that's DFA 101 fact — StaxMan
– StaxMan, Commented Jul 5, 2011 at 18:51

AlexR · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-05 18:44:53Z

1

First, I'd recommend you to take a look on XSD. Using XSD you can define which tags and how many such tags may appear in your XML. Once you are done just validate XML: http://download.oracle.com/javaee/1.4/tutorial/doc/JAXPDOM8.html

answered Jul 5, 2011 at 18:44

AlexR

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StaxMan · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-05 18:53:07Z

0

Aside from XSD or RelaxNG schemas (which should allow specifying acceptable models; and empty one not being one of them, can report it), this would be easy to deal with Stax XMLStreamReader (javax.xml.stream.) as well. Read any tutorial, and check for START_ELEMENT/END_ELEMENT pairs (with 'parents' as local name).

answered Jul 5, 2011 at 18:53

StaxMan

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