Format XML using Java

I have been looking for various options for format and pretty print XML string, I found few different options to do that with or without external dependencies. Even Java itself provided some APIs to do so. I will try to list down some of the ways to pretty print XML string but I will not explain the code because its simple, easy and more readable.

Java DOM API

No need of any external dependencies to run the below code. 

    public String formatXML(String input)
    {
        try
        {
            final InputSource src = new InputSource(new StringReader(input));
            final Node document = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance()
                    .newDocumentBuilder().parse(src).getDocumentElement();

            final DOMImplementationRegistry registry = DOMImplementationRegistry
                    .newInstance();
            final DOMImplementationLS impl = (DOMImplementationLS) registry
                    .getDOMImplementation("LS");
            final LSSerializer writer = impl.createLSSerializer();

            writer.getDomConfig().setParameter("format-pretty-print",
                    Boolean.TRUE);
            writer.getDomConfig().setParameter("xml-declaration", true);

            return writer.writeToString(document);
        } catch (Exception e)
        {
            e.printStackTrace();
            return input;
        }
    }

Java XML Transformer

Same as first code. This code doesn't need any external dependencies. 

    public String formatXML(String input)
    {
        try
        {
            Transformer transformer = TransformerFactory.newInstance()
                    .newTransformer();
            transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");
            transformer.setOutputProperty(
                    "{http://xml.apache.org/xslt}indent-amount", "3");

            StreamResult result = new StreamResult(new StringWriter());
            DOMSource source = new DOMSource(parseXml(input));
            transformer.transform(source, result);
            return result.getWriter().toString();
        } catch (Exception e)
        {
            e.printStackTrace();
            return input;
        }
    }

    private Document parseXml(String in)
    {
        try
        {
            DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
            DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
            InputSource is = new InputSource(new StringReader(in));
            return db.parse(is);
        } catch (Exception e)
        {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    }

Using Apache xerces impl

The below code needs an external dependency xerces-impl. Add the following dependency in maven.  

<dependency>
     <groupId>xerces</groupId>
     <artifactId>xercesImpl</artifactId>
     <version>2.8.0</version>
</dependency>

    public String formatXML(String input)
    {
        try
        {
            final Document document = parseXml(input);
            OutputFormat format = new OutputFormat(document);
            format.setLineWidth(65);
            format.setIndenting(true);
            format.setIndent(3);
            Writer out = new StringWriter();
            XMLSerializer serializer = new XMLSerializer(out, format);
            serializer.serialize(document);
            return out.toString();
        } catch (Exception e)
        {
            e.printStackTrace();
            return input;
        }
    }

    private Document parseXml(String in)
    {
        try
        {
            DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
            DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
            InputSource is = new InputSource(new StringReader(in));
            return db.parse(is);
        } catch (Exception e)
        {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    }

Using dom4j API

The below code needs dom4j dependency. Add the following dependency in maven.

<dependency>
     <groupId>dom4j</groupId>
     <artifactId>dom4j</artifactId>
     <version>1.6.1</version>
</dependency>

    public String formatXML(String input)
    {
        try 
        {
            Document doc = DocumentHelper.parseText(input);  
            StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();  
            OutputFormat format = OutputFormat.createPrettyPrint();  
            format.setIndent(true);
            format.setIndentSize(3); 
            XMLWriter xw = new XMLWriter(sw, format);  
            xw.write(doc);  
            
            return sw.toString();
        }
        catch(Exception e)
        {
            e.printStackTrace();
            return input;
        }
    }

Please comment if you know any other ways to pretty print XML using Java. Happy Learning!!!!