Parsing dl tag using Jsoup

Question

I am trying to parse a <dl> tag using Jsoup. The <dl> tag contains <dt> tags and <dd> tags. I have a HashMap ( HashMap<String, List<String> ) in which I want to put the <dt> s as keys and <dd> s as values (there are multiple <dd> tags per <dt> tag.

The HTML looks like this:

<dl>
<dt>
    <span class="paramLabel">Parameters:</span>
</dt>
<dd>
    <code>y</code> - the ordinate coordinate
</dd>
<dd>
    <code>x</code> - the abscissa coordinate
</dd>
<dt>
    <span class="returnLabel">Returns:</span>
</dt>
<dd>
    the <i>theta</i> component of the point (<i>r</i>,&nbsp;<i>theta</i>) in polar coordinates that corresponds to the point (<i>x</i>,&nbsp;<i>y</i>) in Cartesian coordinates.
</dd>

I've tried the following:

String title = "";
List<String> descriptions = new ArrayList<>();
for (int i = 0; i < children.size(); i++) {
    Element child = children.get(i);

    if(child.tagName().equalsIgnoreCase("dt")) {
        if(descriptions.size() != 0) {
            block.fields.put(title, descriptions);
            descriptions.clear();

        }

        title = child.text();
    }
    else if(child.tagName().equalsIgnoreCase("dd")) {
        descriptions.add(child.text());

        if(i == children.size() - 1) {
            block.fields.put(title, descriptions);
        }
    }
}

I expected to get this:

 * Parameters -> y - the ordinate coordinate
 *               x - the abscissa coordinate
 * Returns    -> the theta component of the point (r, theta) in polar coordinates that corresponds to the point (x, y) in Cartesian coordinates.

But I got this:

 * Parameters -> the theta component of the point (r, theta) in polar coordinates that corresponds to the point (x, y) in Cartesian coordinates.


 * Returns    -> the theta component of the point (r, theta) in polar coordinates that corresponds to the point (x, y) in Cartesian coordinates.

Answer 1

You need to insert a copy of your descriptions list into the map, currently you manipulate 1 instance of the list. So instead of:

block.fields.put(title, descriptions);

create a new list, eg:

block.fields.put(title, new ArrayList<>(descriptions));