Java : Parse into an XML Object that has list with other objects as a field

Question

I have an Activity class, it has list of children subactivities, each of said subactivities have its own list and so on.

public class Activity 
{   
    private Activity parent;         
    private ArrayList<Activity> children = new ArrayList();
    private String name;  
}

Is there an efficent way to parse it into XML file that looks like something like this:

<Activity name="1">
<children>
   <Activity name="2>
   <children>
       <Activity name="3">
   </children>
</children>
<Activity name ="4">

and so on?

What you're looking for is serialization and there are several options for XML serialization, starting with JAXB: jaxb.java.net — Devon Sutherland
– Devon Sutherland, Commented May 3, 2017 at 21:06

Compass · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-03 21:11:13Z

1

The simplest method of serialization would be using an XMLStreamWriter. This assumes that your only goal is to take a POJO and convert it into an XML format as an endpoint, as opposed to if you're also taking it as an input, which would be more suited for a more complex model such as JAXB.

You'd instantiate the writer to a file, and then write away.

XMLStreamWriter writer; //instantiate this based on your output format, see the tutorial for example

Then you could use this recursive method to populate the XML.

public void writeActivity(Activity activity) {
    writer.writeStartElement("activity");
    writer.writeAttribute("name", activity.getName());

    writer.writeStartElement("children");
    for(Activity child : activity.getChildren()) {
        writeActivity(child);
    }
    writer.writeEndElement(); //ends element children

    writer.writeEndElement(); //ends element activity
}

Depending on if you want an empty "children" node, you can do an if statement, and so on.

answered May 3, 2017 at 21:11

Compass

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1 Comment

Vadim Shmyrov Over a year ago

Thanks! That's exactly what I'm looking for.

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