Android + saxParser + storing objects into ArrayList

Question

I'm using a simple implementation of saxParser. Within my endElement method, I'm storing vo objects to an ArrayList. Unfortunately when I loop over my List, it only returns the last item from my xml data. Just wondering what I'm doing wrong? Relavent code below:

public class MyXMLHandler extends DefaultHandler {
    private StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
    private Boolean currentElement = false;

    private StoreDetails storeDetails = new StoreDetails(); //vo object
    private ArrayList<StoreDetails> dataList = new ArrayList<StoreDetails>(); //list of vo

    public void startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName, Attributes attributes) throws SAXException {
        currentElement = true;
    }

    @Override
    public void endElement(String uri, String localName, String qName) throws SAXException {

        currentElement = false;     

        if (localName.equals("StoreID")) {
            buffer.toString().trim();
            storeDetails.setStoreId(buffer.toString());
        } else if (localName.equals("StoreName")) {
            buffer.toString().trim();
            storeDetails.setStoreName(buffer.toString());
        } else if (localName.equals("StoreCategory")) {
            buffer.toString().trim();
            storeDetails.setStoreCategory(buffer.toString());

            //add vo object to ArrayList - dataList
            dataList.add(storeDetails);
        }

        buffer = new StringBuffer();
    }    

    @Override
    public void characters(char[] ch, int start, int length) throws SAXException {
        if (currentElement) {
            buffer.append(ch, start, length);
            currentElement = false;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void endDocument() throws SAXException {
        Log.i("TAG", "DONE PARSING XML");
        for(StoreDetails details : dataList){
            //ISSUE - returning only the last row in my xml data (over and over)
            Log.i("TAG", "Details ID: " + details.getStoreId());
        }
    }
}

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 08 '12 at 12:55

You have to reinitialize the object after adding it to array list. Otherwise it saves the last data.

Now, For example , If your xml is something like this , then

<Item>
<StoreID></StoreID>
<StoreName></StoreName>
<StoreCategory></StoreCategory>
</Item>

At startElement you have to initialize the 'storeDetails' object.

storeDetails = new StoreDetails();

At endElement you have to add the 'storeDetails' object to the array list.

dataList.add(storeDetails);

In this way , when will occur at startElement , 'storeDetails' object will get initialize , it will save current item's information( StoreID,StoreName,StoreCategory ) & then when will occur at endElement , 'storeDetails' object will be added to the arraylist. Thus the parsing will go on and you will get all the data in your arraylist.

Ok, this answer pointed me in the correct direction. To note, for my specific XML, I simply had to place the storeDetails = new StoreDetails(); within a certain localName conditional: if(localName.equals("Store")) storeDetails = new StoreDetails(); — worked, Apr 09 '12 at 13:39

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 08 '12 at 07:46

I guess the problem is that you use single instance of "vo object" for all items in ArrayList. You need smth like this in startElement:

storeDetailes = new ...

Refer to documents, explaning Java memory model.

Android + saxParser + storing objects into ArrayList

2 Answers2