How to write XML file in Java (DOM Parser)

Earlier we learned how to read XML file and how to edit XML file in java using DOM Parser, today we will learn how to write an XML file in java using DOM Parser.

Here is the requirement for our XML file.

1. The root element will be “Employees” with namespace “https://www.journaldev.com/employee”. This root element will contain the list of Employees.
2. The employee information will be written in “Employee” element. There will be two employees information in the XML file.
3. Every employee has an attribute named “id”
4. Employee element will have four elements – “name”, “age”, “role”, “gender”.

Here is the java program for above requirement.

package com.journaldev.xml;


import java.io.File;

import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.OutputKeys;
import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.DOMSource;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamResult;

import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.Node;


public class XMLWriterDOM {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        DocumentBuilderFactory dbFactory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
        DocumentBuilder dBuilder;
        try {
            dBuilder = dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder();
            Document doc = dBuilder.newDocument();
            //add elements to Document
            Element rootElement =
                doc.createElementNS("https://www.journaldev.com/employee", "Employees");
            //append root element to document
            doc.appendChild(rootElement);

            //append first child element to root element
            rootElement.appendChild(getEmployee(doc, "1", "Pankaj", "29", "Java Developer", "Male"));

            //append second child
            rootElement.appendChild(getEmployee(doc, "2", "Lisa", "35", "Manager", "Female"));

            //for output to file, console
            TransformerFactory transformerFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
            Transformer transformer = transformerFactory.newTransformer();
            //for pretty print
            transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");
            DOMSource source = new DOMSource(doc);

            //write to console or file
            StreamResult console = new StreamResult(System.out);
            StreamResult file = new StreamResult(new File("/Users/pankaj/emps.xml"));

            //write data
            transformer.transform(source, console);
            transformer.transform(source, file);
            System.out.println("DONE");

        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }


    private static Node getEmployee(Document doc, String id, String name, String age, String role,
            String gender) {
        Element employee = doc.createElement("Employee");

        //set id attribute
        employee.setAttribute("id", id);

        //create name element
        employee.appendChild(getEmployeeElements(doc, employee, "name", name));

        //create age element
        employee.appendChild(getEmployeeElements(doc, employee, "age", age));

        //create role element
        employee.appendChild(getEmployeeElements(doc, employee, "role", role));

        //create gender element
        employee.appendChild(getEmployeeElements(doc, employee, "gender", gender));

        return employee;
    }


    //utility method to create text node
    private static Node getEmployeeElements(Document doc, Element element, String name, String value) {
        Element node = doc.createElement(name);
        node.appendChild(doc.createTextNode(value));
        return node;
    }

}

Notice that I have created two StreamResult, one to print XML in console for debugging purpose and another to write it to file.

Here is the output XML from above program.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<Employees xmlns="https://www.journaldev.com/employee">
<Employee id="1">
<name>Pankaj</name>
<age>29</age>
<role>Java Developer</role>
<gender>Male</gender>
</Employee>
<Employee id="2">
<name>Lisa</name>
<age>35</age>
<role>Manager</role>
<gender>Female</gender>
</Employee>
</Employees>

The XML is not formatted, if you want XML to be properly formatted, read format XML in java.