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scenarios Parsing Complex XML with Namespaces in Java - Namespace Prefixes Not Resolving

👀 Views: 0 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-08-21
xml parsing java Java

I'm upgrading from an older version and I just started working with I'm having trouble parsing an XML document that includes namespaces in Java. The XML format looks like this: ```xml <root xmlns:ns="http://example.com/ns"> <ns:item> <ns:name>Item 1</ns:name> <ns:price>100</ns:price> </ns:item> <ns:item> <ns:name>Item 2</ns:name> <ns:price>200</ns:price> </ns:item> </root> ``` I’m using the `DocumentBuilderFactory` to parse the XML and trying to retrieve the elements by their tag names with the namespace prefix, but it seems like the prefixes are not being resolved correctly. Here’s the code snippet I’m currently working with: ```java import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder; import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory; import org.w3c.dom.Document; import org.w3c.dom.NodeList; import org.w3c.dom.Element; public class XMLParser { public static void main(String[] args) { try { DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance(); factory.setNamespaceAware(true); DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder(); Document doc = builder.parse("path/to/your/file.xml"); NodeList itemList = doc.getElementsByTagNameNS("http://example.com/ns", "item"); for (int i = 0; i < itemList.getLength(); i++) { Element item = (Element) itemList.item(i); String name = item.getElementsByTagNameNS("http://example.com/ns", "name").item(0).getTextContent(); String price = item.getElementsByTagNameNS("http://example.com/ns", "price").item(0).getTextContent(); System.out.println("Name: " + name + ", Price: " + price); } } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } } ``` When I run this code, it throws a `NullPointerException` because `getElementsByTagNameNS` returns `null` for both `name` and `price`. I’ve confirmed that the XML is well-formed and the namespaces are declared correctly. I’ve also double-checked the URL for the namespace, and it matches what’s in the XML. Can someone guide to understand why the namespace prefixes seem to be causing issues? Are there any common pitfalls when working with XML namespaces in Java? Any guidance would be appreciated! For context: I'm using Java on Linux. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Could someone point me to the right documentation? I've been using Java for about a year now. Any help would be greatly appreciated!