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e530. Getting the Value of an Entity Reference in a DOM Document

The value of an entity reference is kept in the child nodes of the EntityReference node. This example demonstrates an entity reference with three children.

Note: By default, a parser expands entity references while constructing the DOM tree. See e516 Preventing Expansion of Entity References While Parsing an XML File to prevent expansion.

    // Obtain a document; the following method is implemented in
    // e516 Preventing Expansion of Entity References While Parsing an XML File
    Document doc = parseXmlFileNoExpandER("infilename.xml", false);
    
    // Get the entity reference (see input file)
    Element root = doc.getDocumentElement();
    EntityReference eref = (EntityReference)root.getFirstChild();
    
    // The first child of the entity reference is comment
    Comment comment = (Comment)eref.getFirstChild();               // comment
    
    // The second child of the entity reference is an element
    Element elem = (Element)eref.getFirstChild().getNextSibling(); // <i>
    
    // The third child of the entity reference is a text
    Text text = (Text)eref.getLastChild();                         // text

This is the sample input for the example:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE root [
        <!ENTITY entity "<!--comment--><i/>text">
    ]>
    <root>&entity;</root>