[jdom-interest] copying element content

[vonderLuft, Andrew]

Please forgive my ignorance, but surely there is a simple way to copy all
the content of one element to another, e.g. 

oneElement.setContent(another.getContent());

However, this never works for me -- not sure why.  It either hangs or gives
me "existing parent" errors.  I've resorted to writing this utility method,
which, BTW, I submit for your use and/or abuse:

/**
 * <p>
 * <code>copyElementContent</code> copies content of source Element argument
 * to destination Element argument, which is returned.
 * Processes recursively to copy entire tree of child elements.
 * </p>
 * Creation date: (8/31/2001 1:44:07 PM)
 * @author: Andrew vonderLuft
 * @param: source org.jdom.Element - the source Element
 * @param: dest org.jdom.Element - the destination Element
 * @return: org.jdom.Element - the Element with copied content
 */
public static Element copyElementContent(Element source, Element dest) {

	if (source == null) return null;
	if (dest == null) dest = new Element(source.getName());

	dest.removeChildren();

	if (source.hasChildren()) {
		List children = source.getChildren();
		Element childSource, childDest;
		for (int i=0; i < children.size(); i++) {
			childSource = (Element) children.get(i);
			childDest = new Element(childSource.getName());

			dest.addContent(copyElementContent(childSource,
childDest));
		}
	} else {
		if (source.getText().length() > 0)
dest.setText(source.getText());
	}

	List attrList = source.getAttributes();
	if (attrList.size() > 0) {
		for (int i = 0; i < attrList.size(); i++) {
			dest.setAttribute( ((Attribute)
attrList.get(i)).detach());
		}
	}
	return dest;
	
}



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