private static void readCategories() { try { DocumentBuilder dBuilder = dbFactory.newDocumentBuilder(); Document doc = dBuilder.parse(fXmlFile); NodeList CategoryList = doc.getElementsByTagName("Category"); List<Category> categoryList = new ArrayList<Category>(); for (int temp = 0; temp < CategoryList.getLength(); temp++) { Node nNode = CategoryList.item(temp); if (nNode.getNodeType() == Node.ELEMENT_NODE) { Element eElement = (Element) nNode; Category newCategory = new Category(getTagValue("CategoryName", eElement)); categoryList.add(newCategory); } } dc.setCategoryList(categoryList); } catch (FileNotFoundException e) { dc.setCategoryList(new ArrayList<Category>()); } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } }