How to stop parsing of a file with SAX

[Branko Santo]

Hello,
This is the code I have

    
            public void characters(char[] ch, int start, int length)
            {
                Date date2 = new Date(new String(ch, start, length));
                if(date.after(date2))
                {
                     //if true stop parsing the document
                }
           }

Need just to stop parsing the document.
I tried so many options but I am stuck.
Can someone help?

[William Brogden]

Just throw an exception - it is by far the simplest thing to do. You might make that a custom extension of java.lang.RuntimeException and specifically catch that exception in the code that starts the parser - that way you can conveniently package the information found.

HOWEVER - I must point out a serious bug in your code. You simply can not rely on the characters method being called with the complete text to create a Date. It might work fine for some random amount of time and then fail.
Depending on how the buffer loads that the SAX parser is reading fall in the stream of text, characters may get only part of the element contents.

Instead - when the startElement for the date is hit, begin accumulating characters input in a StringBuffer. When the endElement is hit you can look at the complete element contents.

Bill

[Branko Santo]

I bow down to thee

Thanks a lot man!

[Branko Santo]

Thank you once again William
I got something like this now.
This should work?

   
...
            boolean date;
            StringWriter datew;
...
            public void startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName, Attributes atts)
            {
                if(localName.equalsIgnoreCase("Date"))
                {
                    date = true;
                    datew = new StringWriter();
                }
            }
...
            public void characters(char[] ch, int start, int length)
            {
                if(date)
                {
                    datew.append(new String(ch, start, length));
                }
            }
...
            public void endElement(String uri, String localName, String qName)
            {
                if(localName.equalsIgnoreCase("Date"))
                {
                    Date datum = new Date(new Long(datew.toString()));
                    if(datum.before(defaultDate))
                    {
                        throw exception;  // the custom exception
                    }
                    else
                    {
                       game.setDate(datum);
                    }
                    date = false;
                }
           }
 
 

[William Brogden]

It looks like you are on the right track to me but instead of a StringWriter you could use a StringBuilder(in Java 1.5 - slightly faster) or StringBuffer(in earlier Java).

Bill