Java tutorial
//package com.java2s; import org.w3c.dom.*; public class Main { public static Element getOnlyElementChild(Element e, String tag, RuntimeException exc) { NodeList nl = e.getChildNodes(); Element result = null; for (int i = 0; i < nl.getLength(); i++) { Node n = nl.item(i); if (n.getNodeType() == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) { if (result != null) // more than one Element children throw exc; result = (Element) n; } } if (result == null // zero Element children || !result.getTagName().equals(tag)) // wrong tag throw exc; return result; } }