Java Remove empty XML tags

Question

I\'m looking for a simple Java snippet to remove empty tags from a (any) XML structure

    bla
    <         


        

Answer 1

public static void main(String[] args) {

    final String regex1 = "<([a-zA-Z0-9-\\_]*)[^>]*/>";
    final String regex2 = "<([a-zA-Z0-9-\\_]*)[^>]*>\\s*";

    String xmlString = "bla";
    System.out.println(xmlString);

    final Pattern pattern1 = Pattern.compile(regex1);
    final Pattern pattern2 = Pattern.compile(regex2);

    Matcher matcher1;
    Matcher matcher2;
    do { 
        xmlString = xmlString.replaceAll(regex1, "").replaceAll(regex2, "");
        matcher1 = pattern1.matcher(xmlString);
        matcher2 = pattern2.matcher(xmlString);
    } while (matcher1.find() || matcher2.find());

    System.out.println(xmlString);
}

Console:

    bla
    
    
    
        
            
                
            
        
        
    



    bla

Online demo here