[jdom-interest] getChildren() returns an empty list.. (please help)

[John L. Webber - Jentro AG]

Mirabito, Massimo wrote:
> You will have to forgive me but I am extremely new to JDOM. 

Hope you enjoy JDOM!

> Following is a summary of my problem
> 
> 1) XML document
> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
> <security xmlns="s2">
>   <application>
>     <application-id>100</application-id>
>     <application-name>Application 1</application-name>
>     <application-description>Application 1
> Description</application-description>
>     <application-roles>
>       <role id="1" name="Role 1" description="Role 1 Desc" />
>       <role id="2" name="Role 2" description="Role 2 Desc" />
>     </application-roles>
>   </application>
>   <user-roles>
>     <role id="1" name="Role 1" description="Role 1 Desc">
>       <access id="1" name="can">111111</access>
>     </role>
>     <role id="2" name="Role 2" description="Role 2 Desc">
>       <access id="2" name="irb_id">4444444</access>
>     </role>
>   </user-roles>
> </security>
> 
> 3) I can get the root element I check and see if it has children and it
> returns true.... but when I invoke getChildren() the List size is 0
> 
> root = doc.getRootElement();
> System.out.println("has children " + root.hasChildren());		
> List appRoles = root.getChildren("application-roles ");
> System.out.println("Size " + appRoles.size());	

Look at the javadocs for Element.getChildren(String) carefully: "This 
returns a List of all the child elements nested directly (one level 
deep) within this element with the given local name and belonging to no 
namespace, returned as Element objects."

That is why root.hasChildren() returns true, but 
root.getChildren("application-roles") returns an empty List: the 
<application-roles> element is not nested directly under the root element.

In general, JDOM methods that return lists return an empty list on 
failure, not null.

Greetings,

John


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