Read, Write and Parse XML file in Android

1. Read and Parse Xml file
The sample XML file looks like the following:

<packingList>
    <category name="test">
    </category>
<packingList>

The following code shows you how to read and parse the file

ArrayList<Category> categories;
XmlPullParser parser = Xml.newPullParser();
try {
    FileInputStream fIn = openFileInput(FILE_NAME); 
    InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(fIn);
    
    // auto-detect the encoding from the stream
    parser.setInput(isr);
    int eventType = parser.getEventType();
    Category currentCategory = null;
    boolean done = false;
    while (eventType != XmlPullParser.END_DOCUMENT && !done){
        String name = null;
        switch (eventType){
            case XmlPullParser.START_DOCUMENT:
                break;
            case XmlPullParser.START_TAG:
                name = parser.getName();
                if (name.equalsIgnoreCase("packingList")){
                    categories = new ArrayList<Category>();
                } else if (categories != null){
                    if (name.equalsIgnoreCase("category"))
                    currentCategory = new Category(parser.getAttributeValue(0)); 
                }
                break;
            case XmlPullParser.END_TAG:
                name = parser.getName();
                if (name.equalsIgnoreCase("category") && 
                    currentCategory != null){
                    categories.add(0, currentCategory);
                } else if (name.equalsIgnoreCase("packingList")){
                    done = true;
                }
                break;
            }
        eventType = parser.next();
        }
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
    // TODO
} catch (IOException e) {
    // TODO
} catch (Exception e){
    // TODO
}

2. Write to file

 

try {
    FileOutputStream fOut = openFileOutput(FILE_NAME, MODE_WORLD_READABLE); 
    OutputStreamWriter osw = new OutputStreamWriter(fOut);  
    String fileContent = …; //build file content
    osw.write(fileContent ); 
    osw.flush(); 
    osw.close();
    
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
…
}