The value of an entity reference is kept in the child nodes of the EntityReference node. This example demonstrates an entity reference with three children.
Note: By default, a parser expands entity references while constructing the DOM tree. See e516 Preventing Expansion of Entity References While Parsing an XML File to prevent expansion.
// Obtain a document; the following method is implemented in
// e516 Preventing Expansion of Entity References While Parsing an XML File
Document doc = parseXmlFileNoExpandER("infilename.xml", false);
// Get the entity reference (see input file)
Element root = doc.getDocumentElement();
EntityReference eref = (EntityReference)root.getFirstChild();
// The first child of the entity reference is comment
Comment comment = (Comment)eref.getFirstChild(); // comment
// The second child of the entity reference is an element
Element elem = (Element)eref.getFirstChild().getNextSibling(); //
// The third child of the entity reference is a text
Text text = (Text)eref.getLastChild(); // text
This is the sample input for the example:
]>
&entity;