How to detect xml arrays in java using stax?

Question

I'm trying to parse an XML file using STAX. I'm using the events:

-XMLStreamConstants.START_ELEMENT
-XMLStreamConstants.CHARACTERS
-XMLStreamConstants.END_ELEMENT

Is there any event or a "tricky way" to detect the existence of an array in XML? The main problem is that I don't know the format of the XML being parsed, it can be any XML of any format.

Note that I don't want to use other libraries because the XML file is huge and I don't want to load all the file to the memory.

In json reader we have the events:

-BEGIN_ARRAY
-END_ARRAY

So I'm searching for a way like this to detect the begining of an array in XML using STAX.

Thank you

Answer 1

A Stack<String> of the nested elements, like book, chapter, paragraph, sentence. On start and end of element push/pop onto/from the stack, remember the previous element, and put repeated elements in an "array", a List<Object> , json [...] , where Object might be Map<String, Object> , json { field: ..., ... } .

<book>
    <author />
    <chapter>
         <paragraph>
             <sentence>
             <sentence>


Map
    "book" : Map
          "author" : String
          "chapter" : List
               Map
                   "paragraph" : List
                       Map
                           "sentence" : List
                               String
                               String

Stack<String> tagNesting = new Stack<>();
String priorTag = "";
Map<String, Object> parentValue;

Normally every element is a Map ( LinkedHashMap would conserve order) with as entries XML attributes and XML child elements. Place the attributes with key "@" + name , and the elements just with key name .

If an element is repeated, check the prior entry (Map, or already List) and ad to it, so there is one List.