In this article you will learn how to Parse a XML in java. We are following below steps to Parse the XML.

1. Create Document Builders to Retrieve XML Data
2. Retrieve Root Element
3. Retrieve Sub Elements
4. Retrieve Child Elements
5. Retrieve Attribute

Below is the XML file data which we are going to parse

<soup_menu>
<food index = "393">
<name>Soup 01</name>
<price>$1.23</price>
<description>Homemade Soup 01</description>
<calories>200</calories>
</food>
<food index = "394">
<name>Soup 02</name>
<price>$5.34</price>
<description>Homemade Soup 02</description>
<calories>300</calories>
</food>
<food index = "395">
<name>Soup 03</name>
<price>$5.33</price>
<description>Homemade Soup 03</description>
<calories>400</calories>
</food>
<food index = "396">
<name>Soup 04</name>
<price>$6.77</price>
<description>Homemade Soup 04</description>
<calories>500</calories>
</food>
<food index = "397">
<name>Soup 05</name>
<price>$3.12</price>
<description>Homemade Soup 05</description>
<calories>650</calories>
</food>
</soup_menu>

Import the related packages as below

import java.io.File;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;
import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;

Add a Document Builder to Retrieve XML Data

 DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
 DocumentBuilder dBuilder = dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder();

Parse the file

Document doc = dBuilder.parse(fXmlFile);

Retrieve the Root Element (soup_menu)

doc.getDocumentElement().getNodeName()

Retrieve the Sub Elements (food)

NodeList nList = doc.getElementsByTagName("food");

Retrieve the Attribute of Sub Element

System.out.println("Food Index # : " + eElement.getAttribute("index"));

Retrieve Child Elements

System.out.println("Name : " + eElement.getElementsByTagName("name").item(0).getTextContent());
System.out.println("Price : " + eElement.getElementsByTagName("price").item(0).getTextContent());
System.out.println("Description : " + eElement.getElementsByTagName("description").item(0).getTextContent());
System.out.println("Calories : " + eElement.getElementsByTagName("calories").item(0).getTextContent());

Full source code is as below

package xmlreader;

import java.io.File;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;
import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;

/**
 *
 * @author TechProgramme
 */
public class XMLReader {

    /**
     * @param args the command line arguments
     */
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // TODO code application logic here
        
        try {

            File fXmlFile = new File("C:\\Users\\Sithara\\Documents\\NetBeansProjects\\menu.xml");
            DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
            DocumentBuilder dBuilder = dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
            Document doc = dBuilder.parse(fXmlFile);

            doc.getDocumentElement().normalize();

            System.out.println("Root element :" + doc.getDocumentElement().getNodeName());

            NodeList nList = doc.getElementsByTagName("food");

            System.out.println("----------------------------");

            for (int temp = 0; temp < nList.getLength(); temp++) {

                Node nNode = nList.item(temp);

                System.out.println("\nCurrent Element :" + nNode.getNodeName());

                if (nNode.getNodeType() == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) {
                    Element eElement = (Element) nNode;
                    System.out.println("Food Index # : " + eElement.getAttribute("index"));
                    System.out.println("Name : " + eElement.getElementsByTagName("name").item(0).getTextContent());
                    System.out.println("Price : " + eElement.getElementsByTagName("price").item(0).getTextContent());
                    System.out.println("Description : " + eElement.getElementsByTagName("description").item(0).getTextContent());
                    System.out.println("Calories : " + eElement.getElementsByTagName("calories").item(0).getTextContent());
                }
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
    
}

Download the full project : https://github.com/TechProgramme/XMLReader