Java XML Child Get by Name getChildElement(NodeList childs, Node parent)

Description

Method provides getting Element objects out of a NodeList.

License

Open Source License

Parameter

Parameter	Description
childs	a NodeList that contains all nodes which should be checked wether they are elements and direct childs of the given parent. The first node that matches these criterions will be returned
parent	the parent node of the given child nodes

Return

the first Element of the given NodeList whose parent node is the given parent. If no such Element exists null will be returned

Declaration

public static Element getChildElement(NodeList childs, Node parent)

Method Source Code

//package com.java2s;
//License from project: Open Source License 

import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;
import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;

public class Main {
    /**/*  ww  w .j  a  va2 s  .  com*/
     * Method provides getting Element objects out of a NodeList. This method is
     * useful if the xml file is formated with whitespaces because they are
     * interpreted by the DOM parser as text nodes. So especially calls to<br>
     * getFirstChild(), getLastChild(), etc<br>
     * will not surely return elements. To be sure, that you will get an Element
     * use this method by giving the list of child nodes
     * (parent.getChildNodes()) and the parent node (necessary so that only the
     * direct child will be returned and no deeper ones).<br>
     * If no Element is in the list that is a direct child of parent null will
     * be returned.
     * 
     * @param childs
     *            a NodeList that contains all nodes which should be checked
     *            wether they are elements and direct childs of the given
     *            parent. The first node that matches these criterions will be
     *            returned
     * @param parent
     *            the parent node of the given child nodes
     * 
     * @return the first Element of the given NodeList whose parent node is the
     *         given parent. If no such Element exists null will be returned
     */
    public static Element getChildElement(NodeList childs, Node parent) {
        Node childNode;
        String parentName;

        parentName = parent.getNodeName();

        for (int i = 0; i < childs.getLength(); i++) {
            childNode = childs.item(i);

            if ((childNode instanceof Element) && (childNode.getParentNode().getNodeName().equals(parentName))) {
                return (Element) childNode;
            }
        }

        return null;
    }
}