How to create XML file in Java – (DOM Parser)

DOM provides many handy classes to create XML file easily. Firstly, you have to create a Document with DocumentBuilder class, define all the XML content – node, attribute with Element class. In last, use Transformer class to output the entire XML content to stream output, typically a File.
In this tutorial, we show you how to use DOM XML parser to create a XML file.

DOM Parser Example

At the end of the example, following XML file named “file.xml” will be created.

 version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?> 
>
	 id="1">
		>yong

> >mook kim> >mkyong> >100000> > >File : WriteXMLFile.java – Java class to create a XML file.

package com.mkyong.core;
 
import java.io.File;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
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.Attr;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
 
public class WriteXMLFile {
 
	public static void main(String argv[]) {
 
	  try {
 
		DocumentBuilderFactory docFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
		DocumentBuilder docBuilder = docFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
 
		// root elements
		Document doc = docBuilder.newDocument();
		Element rootElement = doc.createElement("company");
		doc.appendChild(rootElement);
 
		// staff elements
		Element staff = doc.createElement("Staff");
		rootElement.appendChild(staff);
 
		// set attribute to staff element
		Attr attr = doc.createAttribute("id");
		attr.setValue("1");
		staff.setAttributeNode(attr);
 
		// shorten way
		// staff.setAttribute("id", "1");
 
		// firstname elements
		Element firstname = doc.createElement("firstname");
		firstname.appendChild(doc.createTextNode("yong"));
		staff.appendChild(firstname);
 
		// lastname elements
		Element lastname = doc.createElement("lastname");
		lastname.appendChild(doc.createTextNode("mook kim"));
		staff.appendChild(lastname);
 
		// nickname elements
		Element nickname = doc.createElement("nickname");
		nickname.appendChild(doc.createTextNode("mkyong"));
		staff.appendChild(nickname);
 
		// salary elements
		Element salary = doc.createElement("salary");
		salary.appendChild(doc.createTextNode("100000"));
		staff.appendChild(salary);
 
		// write the content into xml file
		TransformerFactory transformerFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
		Transformer transformer = transformerFactory.newTransformer();
		DOMSource source = new DOMSource(doc);
		StreamResult result = new StreamResult(new File("C:\\file.xml"));
 
		// Output to console for testing
		// StreamResult result = new StreamResult(System.out);
 
		transformer.transform(source, result);
 
		System.out.println("File saved!");
 
	  } catch (ParserConfigurationException pce) {
		pce.printStackTrace();
	  } catch (TransformerException tfe) {
		tfe.printStackTrace();
	  }
	}
}

A new XML file is created in “C:\\file.xml“, with default UTF-8 encoded.

Note
For debugging, you can change the StreamResult to output the XML content to your console.

StreamResult result =  new StreamResult(System.out);
transformer.transform(source, result);

Tags : dom java xml