Modify XML File in Java using JDOM parser example

Nikos MaravitsasMarch 16th, 2013Last Updated: March 16th, 2013

1 139 1 minute read

In the previous tutorial we show how to read an XML File using JDOM parser. In this tutorial we are going to see how to modify the contents of an XML File.

This is the XML File we are going to use for the demonstration.

testFile.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?><company>

	<employee id="10">
		<firstname>Jeremy</firstname>
		<lastname>Harley</lastname>
        <email>james@example.org</email>
		<department>Human Resources</department>
		<salary>2000000</salary>
	    <address>34 Stanley St.©</address>

	</employee>

	<employee id="2">
		<firstname>John</firstname>
		<lastname>May</lastname>
		<email>john@example.org</email>
		<department>Logistics</department>
		<salary>400</salary>
	    <address>123 Stanley St.</address>
	</employee>

</company>

ModifyXMLFileWithJDOM.java:

package com.javacodegeeks.java.core;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import org.jdom2.Document;
import org.jdom2.Element;
import org.jdom2.JDOMException;
import org.jdom2.input.SAXBuilder;
import org.jdom2.output.Format;
import org.jdom2.output.XMLOutputter;

public class ModifyXMLFileWithJDOM {

	private static final String xmlFilePath = "C:\\Users\\nikos7\\Desktop\\filesForExamples\\testFile.xml";

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		SAXBuilder saxBuilder = new SAXBuilder();
		File xmlFile = new File(xmlFilePath);

		try {
			Document document = (Document) saxBuilder.build(xmlFile);

			Element rootElement = document.getRootElement();

			Element employee = rootElement.getChild("employee");

			// update the value of an attribute
			employee.getAttribute("id").setValue("120");

			// delete an element
			employee.removeChild("address");

			// update an element's value
			employee.getChild("department").setText("Logistics");

			// add a new element
			Element phoneNo = new Element("phonenumber").setText("9120970912");
			phoneNo.setAttribute("location", "home");
			employee.addContent(phoneNo);

			XMLOutputter xmlOutput = new XMLOutputter();

			//update the file with nice XML formating  
			xmlOutput.setFormat(Format.getPrettyFormat());

			xmlOutput.output(document, new FileWriter(xmlFilePath));

			//you can use this to output the result in standard output for debugging purposeses
			// xmlOutput.output(doc, System.out);

			System.out.println("XML File successfully updated!");

		} catch (IOException io) {
			System.out.println(io.getMessage());
		} catch (JDOMException jdomex) {
			System.out.println(jdomex.getMessage());
		}
	}
}

Updated testFile.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<company>
  <employee id="120">
    <firstname>Jeremy</firstname>
    <lastname>Harley</lastname>
    <email>james@example.org</email>
    <department>Logistics</department>
    <salary>2000000</salary>
    <phonenumber location="home">9120970912</phonenumber>
  </employee>
  <employee id="2">
    <firstname>John</firstname>
    <lastname>May</lastname>
    <email>john@example.org</email>
    <department>Logistics</department>
    <salary>400</salary>
    <address>123 Stanley St.</address>
  </employee>
</company>

This was an example on how to modify the contents of an XML File using JDOM.