public Element getFileRoot(String filename) { // find file & load file Element root = null; boolean verify = false; try { SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder("org.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser", verify); builder.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/xinclude", true); builder.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/xinclude/fixup-base-uris", false); builder.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/allow-java-encodings", true); builder.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/validation/schema", verify); builder.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/validation/schema-full-checking", verify); builder.setFeature("http://xml.org/sax/features/namespaces", true); Document doc = builder.build(new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(new File(filename)))); root = doc.getRootElement(); } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println("While reading file: " + e); } return root; }