How to create "two dimensional" XML structure (with repeated elements )using JDOM?

[Veljko Cankovic]

Hi until now I always worked on example with this or similar structure:

<soapenv:Body>
<ns1:RebootDevice>
<ns1:data>
<ns1:attribute1>VALUE1</ns1:attribute1>
<ns1:attribute2>VALUE2</ns1:attribute2>
</ns1:data>
</ns1:RebootDevice>
</soapenv:Body>

And for that I always succesfully created that XML structure using JDOM on this way:

		Element top = new Element("RebootDevice", ns1;
		Document jDoc = new Document(top);

	        Element data = new Element("data", ns1);
		top.addContent(data);
		
		
		Element attribute1 = new Element("attribute1", ns1);
		data.addContent(attribute1);
		Element attribute2 = new Element("attribute2", ns1);
		data.addContent(attribute2);

And that worked great!!

But now I have to create "two dimensional" xml structure -where some elements have repeated names and I do not know how

<soapenv:Body>
<ns1:RebootDevice>
<ns1:data>
<ns1:attribute1>VALUE1</ns1:attribute1>

<ns1:description>

<ns1:item>
<ns1:value>VALUE2<ns1:value>
<ns1:characteristic>attribute2<ns1:value>
</ns1:item>
<ns1:item>
<ns1:value>VALUE3<ns1:value>
<ns1:characteristic>attribute3<ns1:value>
</ns1:item>

</ns1:description>

</ns1:data>
</ns1:RebootDevice>
</soapenv:Body>

Could someone please help me based on my example how to create this strcuture where I have elements ITEM,VALUE,CHARACTERISTIC more than once??
Thank you

[Paul Clapham]

It doesn't matter if you create two, or two thousand, elements which have the same name. That's a perfectly normal thing to do. Try this slight modification of your existing code:

		Element top = new Element("RebootDevice", ns1;
		Document jDoc = new Document(top);

	        Element data = new Element("data", ns1);
		top.addContent(data);
		
		
		Element attribute1 = new Element("attribute1", ns1);
		data.addContent(attribute1);
		Element attribute1again = new Element("attribute1", ns1);
		data.addContent(attribute1again);
		Element attribute2 = new Element("attribute2", ns1);
		data.addContent(attribute2);

[Veljko Cankovic]

Paul Clapham wrote:It doesn't matter if you create two, or two thousand, elements which have the same name. That's a perfectly normal thing to do. Try this slight modification of your existing code:

		Element top = new Element("RebootDevice", ns1;
		Document jDoc = new Document(top);

	        Element data = new Element("data", ns1);
		top.addContent(data);
		
		
		Element attribute1 = new Element("attribute1", ns1);
		data.addContent(attribute1);
		Element attribute1again = new Element("attribute1", ns1);
		data.addContent(attribute1again);
		Element attribute2 = new Element("attribute2", ns1);
		data.addContent(attribute2);

It does matter becaue I am createing this in some java class and I MUST have same name for the elementse ITEM,VALUE AND CHARACTERSTIC!!! I simply must have two elements of ITEM,VALUE,CHARATCERSTIC but with different values for VALUE AND CHARACTERISTIC.

I think only solution is to put it in some array right? Do you please know solution? I can not create element attribute1again.

[Paul Clapham]

Ah, now perhaps I understand. I thought your problem was how to create the Element objects. Which of course is not a problem at all, as my example shows. But it seems that your problem is actually that you need to design a data structure to store your data in before you produce your XML.

Or do I still not understand?