Searching the XML string content using Regular Expression

[kathir je]

Hi,

I'm having XML content as a string. I'm using W3C dom for getting values from the XML.

I've a very large XML file with attributes, elements similar like below

<Shares>
<bookDetails bookName="How to Learn English" bookAuthor="English Writer">
<Chapter chapterName="From Alphabetes" chapterPage="23"/>
</bookDetails>
<company>
<name>test</name>
<address>test address</address>
<contact>test contact</contact>
<C02>10.5</C02>
</company>
</Shares>

Currently I've written a method which accepts Root Element and searchable name to find the corresponding attribute or element and gets the value.

The method will get the value from a element or an attribute matching the given name.

I've used XPathAPI.selectNodeList to retrieve the value. I've used the below XPATH to check the given searchable name in both attribute and in element

xpath = "//*[@" + inAttr + "]";
xpathElement = "//" + inAttr + "/text()";

NodeList nodelist = XPathAPI.selectNodeList(root, xpath);

NodeList nodelist = XPathAPI.selectNodeList(root, xpathElement)

Sample Input and Output as follows

Input: bookName

Output: How to Learn English

Input: address

Output: test address

Input : C02 --> The element name has numeric character too

Output: 10.5

Problem: The XPATHAPI.selectNodeList() causes performance problem and it takes more time to search and gets the value.

I've planned to use regular expression (Pattern, Matcher) to search and get the values from the XML string.

Can anyone please let me know the regular expression with a code snippet to retrieve value either from a element or an attribute
which matches the element or attribute name ???

Thanks,
Kathir

[Darryl Burke]

kathir, on another occasion and forum you wrote, after you had been referred to this JavaRanch FAQ page:

Sorry about that. i'll make sure that i don't cross post the same matter.

So why weren't you forthright this time around?
http://www.java-forums.org/new-java/41822-searching-xml-string-content-using-regular-expression.html

[Paul Clapham]

If you're asking for a regex which can extract data from an XML document, such things don't exist. The complexity of XML is at a level higher than the complexity of regex.