Java XML First Child Element getFirstChild(final Element parent, final String childName)

Description

Gets the first child element node with the specified tag name of a specified parent node.

License

Apache License

Parameter

Parameter	Description
parent	the parent node.
childName	the specified tag name.

Return

the first child element node with the specified tag name of a specified parent node; returns null if the parent has no child element node with the specified tag name.

Declaration

public static Element getFirstChild(final Element parent, final String childName)

Method Source Code

//package com.java2s;
/*// w  w  w  .j a  v  a2s  . c  o m
 * Copyright (c) 2014  Haixing Hu
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 *
 */

import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;
import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;

public class Main {
    /**
     * Gets the first child element node with the specified tag name of a
     * specified parent node.
     * <p>
     * Note that this function does NOT check the number of children nodes with
     * the specified child name, instead, it just find the first child node with
     * the specified child name and return it.
     *
     * @param parent
     *          the parent node.
     * @param childName
     *          the specified tag name.
     * @return the first child element node with the specified tag name of a
     *         specified parent node; returns null if the parent has no child
     *         element node with the specified tag name.
     * @see getOptionalChild
     * @see getRequiredChild
     */
    public static Element getFirstChild(final Element parent, final String childName) {
        final NodeList childrenList = parent.getChildNodes();
        final int childrenCount = childrenList.getLength();
        for (int i = 0; i < childrenCount; ++i) {
            final Node child = childrenList.item(i);
            if (child.getNodeType() == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) {
                final Element element = (Element) child;
                if (childName.equals(element.getTagName())) {
                    return element;
                }
            }
        }
        return null;
    }
}