Create new empty element

import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.Result;
import javax.xml.transform.Source;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;
/*j  a v  a2s  .co  m*/
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;

public class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    DocumentBuilderFactory domFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
    DocumentBuilder domBuilder = domFactory.newDocumentBuilder();

    Document newDoc = domBuilder.newDocument();
    Element rootElement = newDoc.createElement("parent");
    newDoc.appendChild(rootElement);
    toString(newDoc);

  }
  private static void toString(Document newDoc) throws Exception{
    TransformerFactory tranFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
    Transformer aTransformer = tranFactory.newTransformer();
    Source src = new DOMSource(newDoc);
    Result dest = new StreamResult(System.out);
    aTransformer.transform(src, dest);
  }
}