The Java Developers Almanac 1.4

Home > List of Packages > org.w3c.dom [30 examples] > Element Attributes [5 examples]

e537. Removing All the Attributes in a DOM Element

The tricky part of removing all the attributes in an XML element is to realize that attributes with a default value cannot be removed. Therefore, the following code will never terminate if the element has an attribute with a default value:

    // Very bad code; may never terminate
    NamedNodeMap attrs = element.getAttributes();
    while (attrs.getLength() > 0) {
        attrs.removeNamedItem(attrs.item(0).getNodeName());
    }

This example removes all attributes by first making a copy of the attribute names and then using the list to remove the attributes:

    // Remove all the attributes of an element
    NamedNodeMap attrs = element.getAttributes();
    String[] names = new String[attrs.getLength()];
    for (int i=0; i<names.length; i++) {
        names[i] = attrs.item(i).getNodeName();
    }
    for (int i=0; i<names.length; i++) {
        attrs.removeNamedItem(names[i]);
    }