getNodeValue() returing null WHY?

[Chris Gastin]

When I run the code below based on the Xml document below I getting null returned when I call getNodeValue(). for example if the child node is host I was expecting getNodeValue to return ftp.gastin.com. I am printing the toString of the FtpServer object, which returns the following
hostName = null
loginId = null
password = null
Any help in getting this data out of this document would be great.

<servers>
<ftp-server>
<host>ftp.gastin.com</host>
<login-id>cgastin</login-id>
<password>XXXXX</password>
</ftp-server>
</servers>

  
public List loadFtpServerList(Document doc) {
NodeList ftpServerNodes = doc.getElementsByTagName(TAG_FTP_SERVER);
List ftpServerList = new ArrayList();
for (int i = 0; i < ftpServerNodes.getLength(); i++) {
FTPServer ftpServer = new FTPServer();
Node ftpServerNode = ftpServerNodes.item(i);
NodeList childrenNodes = ftpServerNode.getChildNodes();
for (int j = 0; j < childrenNodes.getLength(); j++) {
Node child = childrenNodes.item(j);
if (TAG_HOST.equals(child.getNodeName())) {
ftpServer.setHostName(child.getNodeValue());
} else if (TAG_LOGIN_ID.equals(child.getNodeName())) {
ftpServer.setLoginId(child.getNodeValue());
} else if (TAG_PASSWORD.equals(child.getNodeName())) {
ftpServer.setPassword(child.getNodeValue());
}
}
ftpServerList.add(ftpServer);
System.out.println(ftpServer.toString());
}

return ftpServerList;
}

[William Brogden]

What you want is the child of the host node, which is a Text node. host is an Element and the nodeValue() of an element is always null.
Very confusing, but there is a great chart in the JavaDocs for org.w3c.dom.Node that summarizes what the various kinds of nodes return as nodeValue().
Bill