OpenSAML user discussion

[Asa Hardcastle <>]

Hi All,

I have a situation where I need to pull elements out of one document  
and put them into a new document, while preserving the original  
document.

So for example, imagine that I have successfully unmarshalled the  
following XML:

<tree id="1">
        <branch length="45">
                <leaf>rustle</leaf>
                <bird color="red">chirp chirp</bird>
                <branch>
                        <leaf/>
                        <monkey/>
                </branch>
        </branch>
        <root>water</root>
</tree>

And I have just created a new XMLObject for the second tree:

<tree id="2"></tree>

I need to copy < branch > wholesale from tree 1 to tree 2.   I do not  
know what elements exist in branch, it implements  
ElementExtensibleXMLObject and AttributeExtensibeXMLObject.

Marshalling, cloning, and unmarshalling seems to work:

tree2.setBranch( cloneAnXMLObject( tree1.getBranch() ) );

public static XMLObject cloneAnXMLObject(XMLObject xmlObject)
{
        Marshaller m = marshallerFactory.getMarshaller(xmlObject);
        Element ele = m.marshall(xmlObject);
        Element eleClone = (Element)ele.cloneNode(true);
        Unmarshaller u = unmarshallerFactory.getUnmarshaller(eleClone);
        return u.unmarshall(eleClone);
}

Is there a better or prescribed way? Are there any negative side- 
effects (besides performance) to the approach above?


thanks,

asa




--
Asa Hardcastle, Technical Lead, openLiberty ID-WSF ClientLib
Tel: +1.413.429.1044 Skype: subsystem7