This example demonstrates how to add CDATA section into an xml document. A CDATA section indicates a block that shouldn’t be parsed. To build a CDATA section just wrap the string with a CDATA object.

package org.kodejava.jdom;

import org.jdom2.CDATA;
import org.jdom2.Document;
import org.jdom2.Element;
import org.jdom2.JDOMException;
import org.jdom2.input.SAXBuilder;
import org.jdom2.output.Format;
import org.jdom2.output.XMLOutputter;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.StringReader;

public class JDOMBuildCDATASection {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String xml = """
                <root>
                   <comments>
                       <comment></comment>
                   </comments>
                </root>""";

        SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder();
        try {
            Document document = builder.build(new StringReader(xml));
            Element root = document.getRootElement();
            Element comments = root.getChild("comments");

            Element comment = comments.getChild("comment");

            // Using the setContent and addContent to add CDATA section
            // into  the xml element.
            comment.setContent(
                    new CDATA("<b>This is a bold string</b>."));
            comment.addContent(
                    new CDATA("<i>And this an italic string</i>."));

            XMLOutputter outputter =
                    new XMLOutputter(Format.getPrettyFormat());
            outputter.output(document, System.out);

            // Reading a CDATA section is simply done by calling the 
            // getText method. It doesn't care if it was a simple string
            // or a CDATA section, it will just return the content as 
            // string.
            String text = comment.getText();
            System.out.println("Text = " + text);
        } catch (JDOMException | IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

The output of the code snippet above:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
  <comments>
    <comment><![CDATA[<b>This is a bold string</b>.]]><![CDATA[<i>And this an italic string</i>.]]></comment>
  </comments>
</root>
Text = <b>This is a bold string</b>.<i>And this an italic string</i>.

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.jdom</groupId>
    <artifactId>jdom2</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.6.1</version>
</dependency>

This example show you how so set text content of XML element. Using JDOM we can easily insert text such as HTML tags without worrying about escaping the tags. JDOM will automatically do this conversion.

package org.kodejava.jdom;

import org.jdom2.Document;
import org.jdom2.Element;
import org.jdom2.JDOMException;
import org.jdom2.input.SAXBuilder;
import org.jdom2.output.Format;
import org.jdom2.output.XMLOutputter;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.StringReader;

public class JDOMSetTextContent {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String xml = """
                <root>
                    <description>
                    </description>
                </root>""";

        SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder();
        try {
            Document document = builder.build(new StringReader(xml));

            Element root = document.getRootElement();
            Element description = root.getChild("description");

            // Adding a text content to the description element. The string
            // will be escaped automatically, so we don't have to use the 
            // < and > symbol.
            description.setText("This is an <strong>IMPORTANT</strong> " +
                    "description");

            XMLOutputter outputter = new XMLOutputter(Format.getPrettyFormat());
            outputter.output(document, System.out);
        } catch (JDOMException | IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.jdom</groupId>
    <artifactId>jdom2</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.6.1</version>
</dependency>

package org.kodejava.jdom;

import org.jdom2.Document;
import org.jdom2.Element;
import org.jdom2.JDOMException;
import org.jdom2.input.SAXBuilder;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.StringReader;

public class JDOMElementTextContent {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String xml = """
                <root>
                    <paragraph>
                Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing \
                elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et \
                dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis \
                nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip \
                ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in \
                reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore \
                eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat \
                cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia \
                deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
                    </paragraph>
                </root>""";

        SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder();
        try {
            Document document = builder.build(new StringReader(xml));

            Element root = document.getRootElement();
            Element paragraph = root.getChild("paragraph");

            // Returns the textual content directly held under this element as 
            // a string. This includes all text within this single element, 
            // including whitespace and CDATA sections if they exist.
            String content = paragraph.getText();
            System.out.println("content = " + content);

            // Returns the textual content of this element with all surrounding
            // whitespace removed. If no textual value exists for the element,
            // or if only whitespace exists, the empty string is returned.
            String contentTrimmed = paragraph.getTextTrim();
            System.out.println("contentTrimmed = " + contentTrimmed);

            // Returns the textual content of this element with all surrounding
            // whitespace removed and internal whitespace normalized to a single
            // space. If no textual value exists for the element, or if only
            // whitespace exists, the empty string is returned.
            String contentNormalize = paragraph.getTextNormalize();
            System.out.println("contentNormalize = " + contentNormalize);
        } catch (JDOMException | IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.jdom</groupId>
    <artifactId>jdom2</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.6.1</version>
</dependency>

In this example you can see how we can read xml attribute value as an integer value instead of string. JDOM provides method such as getIntValue(), getLongValue(), getFloatValue(), getDoubleValue() to get numerical values. For boolean value we can use the getBooleanValue() method.

package org.kodejava.jdom;

import org.jdom2.Document;
import org.jdom2.Element;
import org.jdom2.JDOMException;
import org.jdom2.input.SAXBuilder;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.StringReader;

public class JDOMIntegerAttributeValue {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String xml = """
                <root>
                    <table width="100"/>
                </root>""";

        SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder();
        try {
            Document document = builder.build(new StringReader(xml));

            Element child = document.getRootElement().getChild("table");
            int tableWidth = child.getAttribute("width").getIntValue();
            System.out.println("tableWidth = " + tableWidth);
        } catch (JDOMException | IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.jdom</groupId>
    <artifactId>jdom2</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.6.1</version>
</dependency>

The List returned by the getChildren() method call is a java.util.List. Any modification to the List object immediately reflected in the backing document. This make the manipulation of the XML document easy.

You can also see how we can add a new Element to the document by calling the addContent() method.

package org.kodejava.jdom;

import org.jdom2.Document;
import org.jdom2.Element;
import org.jdom2.JDOMException;
import org.jdom2.input.SAXBuilder;
import org.jdom2.output.Format;
import org.jdom2.output.XMLOutputter;

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.List;

public class JDOMAddRemoveElement {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String xml = """
                <root>
                    <user name="Alice" age="21" dob="20-01-1988"/>
                    <user name="Bob" age="23" dob="01-05-1986"/>
                </root>""";

        SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder();
        try {
            Document document = builder.build(
                    new ByteArrayInputStream(xml.getBytes()));

            // Adding a new element to the root of the document using the
            // addContent method.
            document.getRootElement().addContent(
                    new Element("people").setAttribute("id", "1"));
            document.getRootElement().addContent(
                    new Element("people").setAttribute("id", "1"));

            // Add a new element. By adding a new element to the List of
            // children we can modify the xml document. Using
            // java.util.List makes the modification of XML document 
            // simple and easy.
            List<Element> children = document.getRootElement().getChildren();
            children.add(new Element("user")
                    .setAttribute("name", "Carol")
                    .setAttribute("age", "25")
                    .setAttribute("dob", "06-03-1984"));

            // Add element to the beginning of the xml document.
            children.add(0, new Element("user")
                    .setAttribute("name", "Jimmy")
                    .setAttribute("age", "25")
                    .setAttribute("dob", "16-05-1984"));

            // Remove the fourth element.
            children.remove(3);

            XMLOutputter outputter =
                    new XMLOutputter(Format.getPrettyFormat());
            outputter.output(document, System.out);
        } catch (JDOMException | IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

The result of this code is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
    <user name="Jimmy" age="25" dob="16-05-1984" />
    <user name="Alice" age="21" dob="20-01-1988" />
    <user name="Bob" age="23" dob="01-05-1986" />
    <people id="1" />
    <user name="Carol" age="25" dob="06-03-1984" />
</root>

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.jdom</groupId>
    <artifactId>jdom2</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.6.1</version>
</dependency>

package org.kodejava.jdom;

import org.jdom2.Document;
import org.jdom2.Element;
import org.jdom2.JDOMException;
import org.jdom2.input.SAXBuilder;

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.text.MessageFormat;
import java.util.List;

public class JDOMTraversingElement {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String xml = """
                <root>
                    <country name="Japan" capital="Tokyo"/>
                    <country name="France" capital="Paris"/>
                    <country name="Italy" capital="Rome"/>
                    <country name="England" capital="London"/>
                    <country name="Indonesia" capital="Jakarta"/>
                    <city name="Denpasar"/>
                    <city name="Bangkok"/>
                    <city name="Mumbai"/>
                    <city name="Delhi"/>
                </root>""";

        SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder();
        try {
            Document document = builder.build(
                    new ByteArrayInputStream(xml.getBytes()));

            // Getting the root element
            Element root = document.getRootElement();

            // Getting the first child
            Element country = root.getChild("country");
            System.out.println("Name: " + country.getAttribute("name")
                    .getValue());
            System.out.println("Capital: " + country.getAttribute("capital")
                    .getValue());
            System.out.println("----------------------------------------");

            // Getting all children of the root
            List<Element> elements = root.getChildren();
            for (Element element : elements) {
                if (element.getName().equals("country")) {
                    System.out.println(MessageFormat.format("{0} -> {1}",
                            element.getAttribute("name").getValue(),
                            element.getAttribute("capital").getValue()));
                } else if (element.getName().equals("city")) {
                    System.out.println(element.getAttribute("name")
                            .getValue());
                }
            }
            System.out.println("----------------------------------------");

            // Getting all children of the root named city
            List<Element> cities = root.getChildren("city");
            for (Element city : cities) {
                System.out.println(city.getAttribute("name").getValue());
            }
        } catch (JDOMException | IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

The result of the code snippet are:

Name: Japan
Capital: Tokyo
----------------------------------------
Japan -> Tokyo
France -> Paris
Italy -> Rome
England -> London
Indonesia -> Jakarta
Denpasar
Bangkok
Mumbai
Delhi
----------------------------------------
Denpasar
Bangkok
Mumbai
Delhi

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.jdom</groupId>
    <artifactId>jdom2</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.6.1</version>
</dependency>