XML Parser using jsp

Learn how to parse an XML file and load dynamic data into a jsp page. This tutorial is on the DOM parser in JSP.  The parser loads the xml data into a jsp page using the DOM parser.

Step1

Create an XML file.  You may do so by copying the following code into a bank XML page.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”ISO-8859-1″?>
<all>
<title>FREE Tutorials on Web development scripts &amp; tools at www.tutorials2learn.com</title>
<desc>Tutorials2learn is a FREE resource gallery. Our topics include articles for beginners, intermediate and for the advanced learners. We hope that, this will help us to build a very rich resource gallery, by mutual sharing of knowledge.</desc>
<url>http://www.tutorials2learn.com/</url>
</all>

Now, name the file as “data.xml”. The XML file is ready and now let’s look into the jsp parser.

Step.2

Create a new jsp page and name it as “myxmlparser.jsp”. Put the following code into it.

<%@ page import=”javax.xml.parsers.*,org.w3c.dom.*” %>
<%
try{
String XmlPath = “data.xml”;
%>
<%!
Document doc;
String getXMLValue(String name) {
NodeList nlist=doc.getElementsByTagName(name);
String value = nlist.item(0).getFirstChild().getNodeValue();
return value;
}
%>
<%
String appPath = application.getRealPath(“/”);
DocumentBuilderFactory dbf=DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder db=dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
doc=db.parse(appPath + XmlPath);
String TitleVar    = getXMLValue(“title”);
String DescVar    = getXMLValue(“desc”);
String UrlVar    = getXMLValue(“url”);
%>
<h2><%=TitleVar%></h2>
<p><%=DescVar%></p>
<a href=”<%=UrlVar%>” >Visit the Site</a>
<%
}catch(Exception e){
}%>

Code Explained:

<%@ page import=”javax.xml.parsers.*,org.w3c.dom.*” %>

Importing the necessary parsing classes.

String XmlPath = “data.xml”;

Path to the Xml file.

<%!
Document doc;
String getXMLValue(String name) {
NodeList nlist=doc.getElementsByTagName(name);
String value = nlist.item(0).getFirstChild().getNodeValue();
return value;
}
%>

Function to retrieve data from the  XML DOM.

String appPath = application.getRealPath(“/”);

get the real Path to the root in a variable.

DocumentBuilderFactory dbf=DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
DocumentBuilder db=dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
doc=db.parse(appPath + XmlPath);

XML DOM creation and parsing the XML. The DOM is ready for Communication with XML.

String TitleVar    = getXMLValue(“title”);
String DescVar    = getXMLValue(“desc”);
String UrlVar    = getXMLValue(“url”);

Get the node values into String variables.

<h2><%=TitleVar%></h2>
<p><%=DescVar%></p>
<a href=”<%=UrlVar%>” >Visit the Site</a>

Print the variable values into the page.

Click here to download the resorces.