What is xml parsing in android

Работа с XML

Ресурсы XML и их парсинг

Одним из распространенных форматов хранения и передачи данных является xml . Рассмотрим, как с ним работать в приложении на Android.

Приложение может получать данные в формате xml различными способами — из ресурсов, из сети и т.д. В данном случае рассмотрим ситуацию, когда файл xml хранится в ресурсах.

Возьмем стандартный проект Android по умолчанию и в папке res создадим каталог xml . Для этого нажмем на каталог res правой кнопкой мыши и в контекстном меню выберем New -> Android Resource Directory :

В появившемся окне в качестве типа ресурсов укажем xml :

В этот каталог добавим новый файл, который назовем users.xml и который будет иметь следующее содержимое:

Это обычный файл xml, который хранит набор элементов user. Каждый элемент характеризуется наличием двух подэлементов — name и age. Условно говоря, каждый элемент описывает пользователя, у которого есть имя и возраст.

В папку, где находится основной класс MainActivity, добавим новый класс, который назовем User :

Этот класс описывает товар, информация о котором будет извлекаться из xml-файла.

И в ту же папку добавим новый класс UserResourceParser :

Определим для класса UserResourceParser следующий код:

Данный класс выполняет функции парсинга xml. Распарсенные данные будут храниться в переменной users. Непосредственно сам парсинг осуществляется с помощью функции parse . Основную работу выполняет передаваемый в качестве параметра объект XmlPullParser . Этот класс позволяет пробежаться по всему документу xml и получить его содержимое.

Когда данный объект проходит по документу xml, при обнаружении определенного тега он генерирует некоторое событие. Есть четыре события, которые описываются следующими константами:

START_TAG : открывающий тег элемента

TEXT : прочитан текст элемента

END_TAG : закрывающий тег элемента

END_DOCUMENT : конец документа

С помощью метода getEventType() можно получить первое событие и потом последовательно считывать документ, пока не дойдем до его конца. Когда будет достигнут конец документа, то событие будет представлять константу END_DOCUMENT :

Для перехода к следующему событию применяется метод next() .

При чтении документа с помощью метода getName() можно получить название считываемого элемента.

И в зависимости от названия тега и события мы можем выполнить определенные действия. Например, если это открывающий тег элемента user, то создаем новый объект User и устанавливаем, что мы находимся внутри элемента user:

Если событие TEXT , то считано содержимое элемента, которое мы можем прочитать с помощью метода getText() :

Если закрывающий тег, то все зависит от того, какой элемент прочитан. Если прочитан элемент user, то добавляем объект User в коллекцию ArrayList и сбрываем переменную inEntry, указывая, что мы вышли из элемента user:

Если прочитаны элементы name и age, то передаем их значения переменным name и age объекта User:

Теперь изменим класс MainActivity, который будет загружать ресурс xml:

Вначале получаем ресурс xml с помощью метода getXml() , в который передается название ресурса. Данный метод возвращает объект XmlPullParser , который затем используется для парсинга. Для простоты просто выводим данные в окне Logcat :

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Parsing XML data in Android Apps

Jun 28, 2018 · 4 min read

JSON is become a very widespread format for the Web Services but in some cases, you would have to parse data in the good old XML format. In that tutorial, you are going to learn how to parse a XML file on Android.

Note that there are various XML parses available in the Android SDK in standard. Thus, you can use the following solutions :

• XMLPullParser API
• DOM Parser API
• SAX Parser API

As usual, each parser has its advantages and drawbacks.

The recommendation on Andr o id is to use the XMLPullParser API which consumes less memory than the DOM Parser API which loads the complete XML file in memory before parsing it.

So, in this tutorial, we will use the XMLPullParser API. Note that you can also discover this tutorial in video on YouTube :

Creating a simple User Interface

To display the parsed XML data, we need to create a simple User Interface. It will consist in a simple TextView centered on the screen :

Defining XML data to parse

Then, we define some XML data to parse inside a file under the assets directory of our Android project. This file will be named data.xml and will contain some NBA players with data like name, age and position played :

Creating a Player POJO

To map the data for each player, we create a Player POJO (Plain Old Java Object) :

Preparing the XML Parser

The first step is to load the XML file from the assets of our Android Application. For that, we define a parseXML method. We create a new instance of the XMLPullParserFactory class. Then, we create a new XMLPullParser instance by calling the newPullParser method of the XMLPullParserFactory got previously.

We got an InputStream on the XML file by calling the open method of the AssetManager instance. With that instance, we can set the input on the XMLPullParser instance. It gives us the following code :

Parsing the XML data

Now, we need to parse the XML data. The parsing will be processed in the processParsing method. We start by getting the current event type from the parser by calling the getEventType method.

Then, we enter in a loop while the event type is different of the XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT constant. In the loop, when we meet a XmlPullParser.START_TAG event type, we get the name of the current tag by calling the getName method.

When we have a player tag, we create a new Player instance and we add it in an ArrayList of Player. This list will be used to store all the players read from the XML file.

If the current player is not null, we are reading data for a player. We have to check if the tag is name, age or position. For each case, we call the nextText method of the parser to get the value associated to the tag. Then, we set the value on the current player.

At the end of the loop, we have stored all the players from the XML file on the ArrayList of Player. Note that just before the end of the loop, you need to call the next method of the parser to pass to the following event.

It gives us the following code :

Displaying the XML data

The last step is also the simplest. We need to display the players in our TextView via the printPlayers called at the end of the processParsing method.

In that method, we iterate on the ArrayList of Player and for each player we add its properties (name, age and position) on a StringBuilder instance. Finally, we display the text on the TextView by calling its setText method with the value of the StringBuilder instance.

It gives us the following complete code for the MainActivity :

Our App in Action

Best part of the tutorial is coming since it’s time to put our App in Action. When, you will launch the Application, you should have the following result :

That’s all for that tutorial.

To discover more tutorials on Android development, don’t hesitate to subscribe to the SSaurel’s Channel on YouTube :

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XML Parsing in Android using DOM Parser

Android DOM(Document Object Model) parser is a program that parses an XML document and extracts the required information from it. This parser uses an object-based approach for creating and parsing the XML files. In General, a DOM parser loads the XML file into the Android memory to parse the XML document. This results in more consumption of memory. The document is parsed through every possible node in the XML file. The XML file that contains the information to be extracted includes the following four main components:

1. Prolog: The XML file will start with a prolog. Prolog contains the information about a file, which is available in the first line.
2. Events: Events such as document start and end, tag start and end, etc. are contained in the XML file
3. Text: It is a simple text present in between the opening and closing XML tag elements.
4. Attributes: They are the additional properties of a tag present within the label.

Note that we are going to implement this project using the Kotlin language. One may also perform XML Parsing in another two ways. Please refer to the below articles:

What we are going to do?

1. We need to have an XML file with some information so that we would make one. Place this file under the assets folder. This file is called and would be parsed.
2. We want to show this data in the form of a list to implement a list view.
3. In the Main program, we called the information file (under the assets folder) from the assets folder, and this is provided as an input stream.
4. Using a DocumentBuilderFactory, we would create a new instance.
5. Using a DocumentBuilder, we generate a new document builder.
6. Using a Document method, we parse the input stream.
7. As the information is in the form of nodes, we would create a NodeList and iterate through every node using a FOR loop.
8. Specific information would be extracted in this loop and added to a list (declared earlier in the code).
9. Using a ListAdapter, the data is broadcasted into the list view layout file.

Approach

To parse an XML file using a DOM parser in Android, we follow the following steps:

Step 1: Create a New Project

To create a new project in Android Studio please refer to How to Create/Start a New Project in Android Studio. Note that select Kotlin as the programming language.

Step 2: Create an assets folder

Create an assets folder under the main folder in the Project Layout. Create an Android Resource File in this folder, where we shall put the information in the form of XML. Name this file as information.xml. For doing so refer to the following steps:

Click on Project as shown on the left side of the below image.

Expand until you find the main folder, right-click on it, go to New > Folder > Assets Folder

Then just click on the Finish button.

Now the asset folder is created successfully. Right-Click on the Assets Folder > New > Android Resource FIle

Give it name Information, change type to XML, and finish.

Note: Sometimes, right-clicking on the Assets folder and creating an Android Resource File creates a file in the res folder. If this happens, cut our file and paste it directly into the assets folder. This happens due to some internal settings.

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Processing and Parsing XML in Android

Sharing data over the internet is very popular. We share our information with the other users over the internet. Let’s take a very common example, since we all are developers and to be more precise, we all are Android Developers and we all must have visited the StackOverflow website whenever we are stuck into some problem in our projects and in every 99 out of 100 cases, we find the solution to our problem. The answer that we get from the StackOverflow website consists of various parts that we are less bothered about. In general, the answers or the questions present on the website contains the id of the question, type of the question, author name of the article or question, publishing data, URL and many other things are there on the website. But we want only meaningful data i.e. we want answers and the authors and nothing else.

The problem arises when you want to access the data of a particular website in your Android Application. This is because the data present on the websites are in JSON format or in XML format. So, in order to use that data or to extract the meaningful information from that data, you have to parse that XML file or a JSON file.

So, in this blog, we will learn how to process and parse the XML data in Android. So, let’s get started.

What is XML?

XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. It is a set of rules that are used to encode data or documents in a Machine-readable language. There are many websites that use an XML format to share data on the internet. For example, many blogging websites use an XML format to share data between users. So, XML parsing and processing become an important task to use that data in our Android Application.

XML elements

In general, an XML file consists of a number of elements that together make an XML file. They are the basic building blocks of XML document. These elements are used to store some text elements, attributes, media, etc. Below is the syntax of XML element:

Here, element-name is the name of the element and attributes are used to define the property of XML element. Following is an example of an XML document that is used to describe the data of the student:

We can broadly divide the XML elements in four parts:

1. Prolog: It is the first line that contains the information about the XML file i.e. it is the first line of the XML file.
2. Events: An XML file contains a number of events like document start, document end, Tag start, Tag end, etc.
3. Text: In between the tags(opening and closing), there can be some text. For example, in the above example, “John” is the text.
4. Attributes: These are the properties of XML elements.

XML Parsing

So, we have seen the introduction of XML and our next task is, How to parse the XML in Android? So, let’s find out.In Android, there are various parsers that can be used to parse the XML file in Android. Some of these are:

1. XMLPullParser
2. DOM Parser
3. SAX Parser

Among these three parsers, XMLPullParser is the most commonly and most widely used parsers in Android. This is because XMLPullParser is very efficient and easy to use. Also, unlike the DOM Parser which loads the whole file in the memory and then parses it, the XMLPullParser consumes less memory.

Steps involved in XML parsing

Following are the steps that are involved in XML parsing:

• Analyze the feed: There are many cases when you will be provided with a number of data but you need only few of them. SO, before parsing the XML, your first step should be to find the desired element in the XML data. For example, here is example of XML file of StackOverflow:

Here, if you want to extract the data present in the entry tag and the data of its sub tags then you should keep note of these things.

• Create XMLPullParser object: Our next step is to create the object of XMLPullParser and specify the file name for the XMLPullParser that contains XML. You can use a file or a stream. Following is the code to create an object of the XMLPullParser and then passing the file name for the XMLPullParser:

• Read the desired data: Our last step is to parse the data of the XML file. The following readFeed() function is used to parse the XML file and extract only the values of entries and store it into a list:

Here, XMLPullParser.END_TAG is used to find if the parser has reached to the last tag of the file or not. If it has reached then return and it has not reached then we will check for the entry tag and if found then will add the value to the entries list. If the values are not found be to of entries type then we can skip the parser. At last, we return entries.

Following are the methods that can be used while parsing an XML file:

1. getEventType(): This method is used to get the event type. For example, Document start, Document End, Tag start, Tag end, etc.
2. getName(): This is used to get the tag name in a file. For example, in the above code, the tag name is entry.
3. getAttributeValue(): This method is used to get the attribute value of a particular tag.
4. getAttributeCount(): It returns the total number of attributes of the current tag.
5. getAttributeName(int index): It returns the attribute name at a particular index.
6. getColumnNumber(): It returns the current column number using a 0 based indexing.
7. getName(): It returns the name of the tag.
8. getText(): It returns the text present in a particular element.

XML parsing example

Now, let’s do one example to understand the concept of XML parsing ina very easy and clear manner.

Open Android Studio and create a project with Empty Activity template.

The very first step is to create the XML file. Either you create your own XML file or you can use mine. To create an XML file, go to java folder and then right click on it. Then click on New > Folder > Assets folder and then OK. One assets folder will be created for you. Now right click on that folder and create a file and name it as example.xml. Following is the XML content of example.xml file:

This is a simple example of student data containing the name, surname, mobile and section of the student. In this example, we will extract the name, surname and section of the student. We will ignore the mobile number.

Now, let’s code for the UI part of our application. Here we will display the desired data on a TextView. So, open the activity_main.xml file and add the below code:

So, we are done with the UI part. Now, let’s write the code for the XML parsing. Below is the code for the MainActivity.kt file:

Now, run the application on your mobile phone and try to add more data to your XML file i.e. the example.xml file.

Conclusion

In this blog, we learned about XML parsing in Android. We learned how to parse the data present in the XML format in Android Application. We saw how to use XMLPullParser to do XML parsing. At last, we did one example of XML parsing. You can get more contents about XML parsing at the Android Developer Website.

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