Getting XML output in Java using Core Services

Question

I have done a program in Java which sets ItemTypes in Tridion and gets the list of all specified ItemTypes in a Publication. I have used Element to getList of items.

import java.io.IOException;
import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
import javax.xml.xpath.XPathExpressionException;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.Element;
import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
import com.sdltridion.contentmanager.coreservice.ICoreService;
import com.sdltridion.contentmanager.coreservice.ICoreServiceGetListXmlCoreServiceFaultFaultFaultMessage;
import com.sdltridion.contentmanager.coreservice.ICoreServiceGetSystemWideListXmlCoreServiceFaultFaultFaultMessage;
import com.sdltridion.contentmanager.r6.ArrayOfItemType;
import com.sdltridion.contentmanager.r6.ItemType;
import com.sdltridion.contentmanager.r6.ListBaseColumns;
import com.sdltridion.contentmanager.r6.ObjectFactory;
import com.sdltridion.contentmanager.r6.RepositoryItemsFilterData;

public class RepositoryItemsFilterDataDemo {

   public static void getRepositoryItems(ICoreService endpoint) throws ICoreServiceGetListXmlCoreServiceFaultFaultFaultMessage
   {
      ObjectFactory objectFactory = new ObjectFactory();
      ArrayOfItemType itemTypes = objectFactory.createArrayOfItemType();
      itemTypes.getItemType().add(ItemType.STRUCTURE_GROUP);
      itemTypes.getItemType().add(ItemType.PAGE);

      RepositoryItemsFilterData filter = objectFactory.createRepositoryItemsFilterData();

      ListBaseColumns baseColumns = ListBaseColumns.EXTENDED;
      filter.setRecursive(objectFactory.createItemsFilterDataRecursive(true));
      filter.setItemTypes(objectFactory.createItemsFilterDataItemTypes(itemTypes));

      filter.setBaseColumns(objectFactory.createListBaseColumns(baseColumns));

      Element element = (Element) endpoint.getListXml("tcm:0-29-1", filter).getAny();
      System.out.println(element.toString());

      NodeList schemaList =element.getElementsByTagName("tcm:Item");

      for (int i = 0; i < schemaList.getLength(); i++) {
         Element itemXml = (Element) schemaList.item(i);

         StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
         sb.append("<tcm:Item" + " ");
         sb.append("ID = " );
         sb.append(itemXml.getAttribute("ID"));
         sb.append(" " + "Title = " );
         sb.append(itemXml.getAttribute("Title"));
         sb.append(" " + "Type = " );
         sb.append(itemXml.getAttribute("Type"));
         sb.append(" " + "Modified = " );
         sb.append(itemXml.getAttribute("Modified"));
         sb.append(" " + "FromPub = " );
         sb.append(itemXml.getAttribute("FromPub"));
         sb.append(" " + "Icon = " );
         sb.append(itemXml.getAttribute("Icon"));
         sb.append("/>");
         System.out.println(sb);
      }
   }
}

When I debug my program the element object is returning null. But when I run the program the output is displayed as

o/p:

[tcm:ListItems: null]
<tcm:Item ID = tcm:29-2643-4 Title = 000 Effective treatment of .... Type = 4 Modified = 2013-01-31T01:35:17 FromPub = 040 Merck Connect Website Icon = T4L0P1/>

Can any one suggest what might cause this problem and also can any one suggest how can I get the output in XML format like the one in .NET without hard coding the xml format.

.NET output :

<tcm:ListOrganizationalItems xmlns:tcm="http://www.tridion.com/ContentManager/5.0">
    <tcm:Item ID="tcm:29-107-4" ParentOrgItemID="tcm:0-29-1" Title="Root" Type="4" Modified="2012-09-14T11:06:07" FromPub="000 WCM Empty Parent" Icon="T4L0P1"/>

Answer 1

To give this question an answer for future references, I'll post the information from my reference given in my comment.

The result of the getListXml method is available as a org.w3c.dom.Element, by serializing that, it can be outputted as a string. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1219596/how-to-i-output-org-w3c-dom-element-to-string-format-in-java shows several ways of how this can be done. Assuming you want to stick with the standard Java APIs, you can use a DOMImplementationLS:

Document document = node.getOwnerDocument();
DOMImplementationLS domImplLS = (DOMImplementationLS) document.getImplementation();
LSSerializer serializer = domImplLS.createLSSerializer();
String str = serializer.writeToString(node);

If the <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?> declaration bothers you, you can use a transformer instead:

TransformerFactory transFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
Transformer transformer = transFactory.newTransformer();
StringWriter buffer = new StringWriter();
transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.OMIT_XML_DECLARATION, "yes");
transformer.transform(new DOMSource(node), new StreamResult(buffer));
String str = buffer.toString();