XML Node to String in Java

Question

I came across this piece of Java function to convert an XML node to a Java String representation:

private String nodeToString(Node node) {
    StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
    try {
        Transformer t = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
        t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.OMIT_XML_DECLARATION, "yes");
        t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");
        t.transform(new DOMSource(node), new StreamResult(sw));
    } catch (TransformerException te) {
        System.out.println("nodeToString Transformer Exception");
    }
    return sw.toString();
}

It looks straightforward in that it wants the output string doesn't have any XML declaration and it must contain indentation.

But I wonder how the actual output should be, suppose I have an XML node:

<p><media type="audio" id="au008093" rights="wbowned">
<title>Bee buzz</title>
</media>Most other kinds of bees live alone instead of in a colony. These bees make
tunnels in wood or in the ground. The queen makes her own nest.</p>

Could I assume the resulting String after applying the above transformation is:

"media type="audio" id="au008093" rights="wbowned" title Bee buzz title /media"

I want to test it myself, but I have no idea on how to represent this XML node in the way this function actually wants.

I am bit confused, and thanks in advance for the generous help.

Answer 1

All important has already been said. I tried to compile the following code.

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.StringWriter;

import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.OutputKeys;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerException;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;

import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;

public class Test {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

    String s = 
      "<p>" +
      "  <media type="audio" id="au008093" rights="wbowned">" +
      "    <title>Bee buzz</title>" +
      "  " +
      "  Most other kinds of bees live alone instead of in a colony." +
      "  These bees make tunnels in wood or in the ground." +
      "  The queen makes her own nest." +
      "</p>";
    InputStream is = new ByteArrayInputStream(s.getBytes());

    DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
    DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
    Document d = db.parse(is);

    Node rootElement = d.getDocumentElement();
    System.out.println(nodeToString(rootElement));

  }

  private static String nodeToString(Node node) {
    StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
    try {
      Transformer t = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
      t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.OMIT_XML_DECLARATION, "yes");
      t.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");
      t.transform(new DOMSource(node), new StreamResult(sw));
    } catch (TransformerException te) {
      System.out.println("nodeToString Transformer Exception");
    }
    return sw.toString();
  }

}

And it produced the following output:

<p>  <media id="au008093" rights="wbowned" type="audio">    <title>Bee buzz</title>  </media>  Most other kinds of bees live alone instead of in a colony.  These bees make tunnels in wood or in the ground.  The queen makes her own nest.</p>

You can further tweak it by yourself. Good luck!