How to parse an XML in JSP?

The <x:parse> tag is used to parse the XML data specified either via an attribute or in the tag body.

Attribute

The <x:parse> tag has the following attributes −

Attribute	Description	Required	Default
var	A variable that contains the parsed XML data	No	None
xml	Text of the document to parse (String or Reader)	No	Body
systemId	The system identifier URI for parsing the document	No	None
filter	The filter to be applied to the source document	No	None
doc	XML document to be parsed	No	Page
scope	Scope of the variable specified in the var attribute	No	Page
varDom	A variable that contains the parsed XML data	No	Page
scopeDom	Scope of the variable specified in the varDom attribute	No	Page

Example

The following example shows how parse can be used to read the external XML file −

We have seen how we can parse XML from the body of the given document. Let us now put following content in the books.xml file −

<books>
   <book>
      <name>Padam History</name>
      <author>ZARA</author>
      <price>100</price>
   </book>
   <book>
      <name>Great Mistry</name>
      <author>NUHA</author>
      <price>2000</price>
   </book>
</books>

Now try the following main.jsp, keeping in the same directory −

<%@ taglib prefix = "c" uri = "https://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" %>
<%@ taglib prefix = "x" uri = "https://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/xml" %>
<html>
   <head>
      <title>JSTL x:parse Tags</title>
   </head>
   <body>
      <h3>Books Info:</h3>
      <c:import var = "bookInfo" url = "https://localhost:8080/books.xml"/>
      <x:parse xml = "${bookInfo}" var = "output"/>
      <b>The title of the first book is</b>:
      <x:out select = "$output/books/book[1]/name" />
      <br>
      <b>The price of the second book</b>:
      <x:out select = "$output/books/book[2]/price" />
   </body>
</html>

Access the above JSP using https://localhost:8080/main.jsp, the following result will be displayed −

Books Info:
The title of the first book is:Padam History
The price of the second book: 2000