How to read many elements in XML file

[ikaaki]

Hello,

 

I'm using an XML file for creating a report.

The XML file has a structure like this:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<report id="321" label="111111">
	<tab id="label1" label="label1">
		<refs id="refs1" label="refs1">
			<ref id="ref1" label="ref1">xxxxx</ref>
			<ref id="ref2" label="ref2">UUU</ref>
		</refs>
	</tab>
	<tab id="tab2" label="tab2">
		<refs id="tab2 refs1" label="222">
			<ref id="project" label="Project" type="combobox">A</ref>
		</refs>
	</tab>
</report>

 

When I try to read through the first ref in second refs in the first tab and display this value in a text field.

I used this code:

Code:

[code]tab[1]/refs[2]/ref[1]

This works. But, the numbers of elements "tab","refs","ref" are not stable.

Code:

[code]tab[10]/refs[20]/ref[50]

maybe exist.

The values of id and label are not static too.

So

Code:

[code]/tab/refs/ref[@id="xxx"]

doesn't work neither.

I also tried to use variable, but it doesn't work.

Please Anyone knows how to solve this problem?

Thanks very much.

 

Best regards,

Wei

[ikaaki]

Anyone, please.

[lshannon]

I am not very good with XPath so I am not sure if I can help much with this.

 

I can suggest an alternate approach.

 

Perhaps you can create a query executer that takes in the XML and returns a JavaBean collection?

http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/api/net/sf/jasperreports/engine/data/JRBeanCollectionDataSource.html

 

You could use an API like this to convert the XML to JavaBeans:

http://xmlbeans.apache.org/

 

Once you get the data in a bean collection, processing it in the report might be easier than messing with XPath.

 

Just a thought.