How to create a Document object in Java?

Question

I want to create a Document object with jdom. I have written a function but after I debug I can see that it is not created. and since I am new to XML I don't understand why I can not create. Can you please help me for that?

public Document createSNMPMessage (){

    Element root = new Element("message");
    Document document = new Document(root);

    Element header = new Element("header");

    Element messageType = new Element("messageType").setText("snmp");
    Element sendFrom = new Element("sendFrom").setText("192.168.0.16");
    Element hostName = new Element("hostName").setText("oghmasysMehmet");
    Element sendTo = new Element("sendTo").setText("192.168.0.12");
    Element receiverName = new Element("receiverName").setText("Mehmet");
    Element date = new Element("date").setText("03/10/2011");

    header.addContent(messageType);
    header.addContent(sendFrom);
    header.addContent(hostName);
    header.addContent(sendTo);
    header.addContent(receiverName);
    header.addContent(date);

    Element body = new Element("body");

    Element snmpType = new Element("snmpType").setText("getbulk");
    Element ip = new Element("ip").setText("127.0.0.1");
    Element port = new Element("port").setText("161");
    Element oids = new Element("oids");
    Element oid = new Element("oid").setText("1.3.6.1.2.1.1.3.0");
    oids.addContent(oid);
    Element community = new Element("community").setText("community");
    Element nR = new Element("nR").setText("0");
    Element mR = new Element("mR").setText("5");

    body.addContent(snmpType);
    body.addContent(ip);
    body.addContent(port);
    body.addContent(oids);
    body.addContent(community);
    body.addContent(nR);
    body.addContent(mR);

    return document;

}

When I create it, I convert it to string by using that function ;

    public String xmlToString(Document doc) {
    XMLOutputter outputter = new XMLOutputter(Format.getPrettyFormat());
    return outputter.outputString(doc);
}

and When I try to convert to string to see what is inside of the Document, i get;

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<message />

Answer 1

From what I can see, you are creating a Document object, and adding nodes to the header and body nodes, but these nodes are not being added to your Document object instance document .

I believe you would want to add these nodes to the root element, which is already added to your document .

So, you could add it to your document's root as shown below:

public Document createSNMPMessage (){

    Element root = new Element("message");
    Document document = new Document(root);

    Element header = new Element("header");

    ...
    ...

    Element body = new Element("body");

    ...
    ...

    root.addContent(header);  // NOTE THESE NEW LINES
    root.addContent(body);  // NOTE THESE NEW LINES

    return document;

}