Java tutorial
import org.w3c.dom.Element; import org.w3c.dom.Node; public class Utils { public static Element getFirstChild(Element e, String local) { for (Node n = e.getFirstChild(); n != null; n = n.getNextSibling()) { if (n.getNodeType() == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) { Element c = (Element) n; if (c.getLocalName().equals(local)) return c; } } return null; } }