xml - JAVA SAX parser split calls to characters()

Question

I am doing a project to parse some data from the XML.

For example, the XML is

<abc>abcdefghijklmno</abc>

I need to parse "abcdefghijkmnlp".

But while I test my parse, I discover a big problem:

public class parser{
    private boolean hasABC = false;


        //Constructor HERE
        ......................
        ......................

     @Override
     public void startDocument () throws SAXException{  
     }

     @Override
     public void endDocument () throws SAXException{  
     }

     @Override
     public void startElement(String namespaceURI, String localName, String qName, Attributes atts) throws SAXException{  
          if ("abc".equalsIgnoreCase(localName)) {
              this.hasABC = true;
          }
      }
      @Override
      public void endElement(String namespaceURI, String localName, String qName) throws SAXException{
            if ("abc".equalsIgnoreCase(localName)) {
                 this.hasABC = false;
            }
       }
       @Override
       public void characters(char ch[], int start, int length){
            String content = new String(ch, start, length).trim(); 
            if(this.hasABC){
                 System.out.println("ABC = " + content);
            }
        }
    }

I discover that the parser has parsed the tag two time System print out is,

ABC = abcdefghi

ABC = jklmno <<============ split the message

Why the parser auto call back the characters() two time????

Is the XML haveing some " " or " " ???

Answer 1

Parser is calling characters method more than one time, because it can and allowed per spec. This helps fast parser and keep their memory footprint low. If you want a single string create a new StringBuilder object in the startElement and process it on endElement method.