Parsing XML wit SAX parser

Android provides org.xml.sax package that has that provides the event-driven SAX parser.
to parse the previous response with SAX parser, we have to create a class extending DefaultHandler and override the following methods:

1. startDocument(): invoked when the xml document is open, there we can initialize any member variables.
2. startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName, Attributes attributes): invoked when the parser encounters a xml node, here we can initialize specific instances of our person object.
3. endElement(String uri, String localName, String Name): invoked when the parser reaches the closing of a xml tag. here the element value would have been completely read.
4. characters(char[] ch, int start, int length): this method is called when the parser reads characters of a node value.

we want to parse this xml response:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<person>
    <firstname>Jack</firstname>
    <lastname>smith</lastname>
    <age>28</age>
</person>

so our parsing class will be like this:

/**
  * SAX parser to parse persons response
  */
 public class PersonParser extends DefaultHandler
 {

  // arraylist to store person objects
  ArrayList persons;
  // temporary person object
  Person tempPerson;
  // string builder acts as a buffer
  StringBuilder builder;

  /**
   * Initialize the arraylist
   * @throws SAXException
   */
  @Override
  public void startDocument() throws SAXException {
   pesons=new ArrayList();

  }

  /**
   * Initialize the temp person object which will hold the parsed in//fo
   * and the string builder that will store the read characters
   * @param uri
   * @param localName
   * @param qName
   * @param attributes
   * @throws SAXException
   */
  @Override
  public void startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName,
    Attributes attributes) throws SAXException {

   if(localName.equalsIgnoreCase.equals("person")){
    tempPerson=new Person();
    builder=new StringBuilder();
   }

  }
  /**
   * Finished reading the person tag, add it to arraylist
   * @param uri
   * @param localName
   * @param qName
   * @throws SAXException
   */
  @Override
  public void endElement(String uri, String localName, String qName)
    throws SAXException {
   // finished reading a person, add it to the arraylist
   if(localName.toLowerCase().equals("person"))
   {
    this.persons.add(tempPerson);
   }
   // finished reading "firstname" tag assign it to the temp person
   else if(localName.toLowerCase().equals("firstname")){
    tempPerson.firstName=builder.toString();
   }
   // finished reading "lastname" tag assign it to the temp person
   else if(localName.toLowerCase().equals("lastname")){
    tempPerson.lastName=builder.toString();
   }
   // finished reading "age" tag assign it to the temp person
   else if(localName.toLowerCase().equals("age")){
    tempPerson.age=Integer.parseInt(builder.toString());
   }
  }

  /**
   * Read the value of each tag
   * @param ch
   * @param start
   * @param length
   * @throws SAXException
   */
  @Override
  public void characters(char[] ch, int start, int length)
    throws SAXException {
   // read the characters and append them to the buffer
   String tempString=new String(ch, start, length);
    builder.append(tempString);
  }
 }

the code is pretty easy, the parser iterates over each node, you check the current node name and take an action.

then we call the parser like this:

public ArrayList getPersons(final String response) throws ParserConfigurationException, SAXException, IOException
 {
  BufferedReader br=new BufferedReader(new StringReader(response));
  InputSource is=new InputSource(br);
  PersonParser parser=new PersonParser();
  SAXParserFactory factory=SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
     SAXParser sp=factory.newSAXParser();
     XMLReader reader=sp.getXMLReader();
     reader.setContentHandler(parser);
     reader.parse(is);
     ArrayList persons=parser.persons;

  return persons;

 }