java - Call to get XML element returns null -

i have series of xml files looking through , grabbing specific element from.

 <key>a</key> 

i'm using snippet of code grab xml element, returns null instead of element looking for. not able change xml files.

    file key = new file(filepath);     printwriter keywriter = new printwriter(key);      file xmlfile = new file(configpath);       documentbuilderfactory documentbuilderfactory = documentbuilderfactory.newinstance();     documentbuilder documentbuilder = documentbuilderfactory.newdocumentbuilder();      document document = documentbuilder.parse(xmlfile);     nodelist nodes = document.getelementsbytagname("key");       element keyvalue = (element) nodes.item(0);     keywriter.println(keyvalue);     keywriter.close();   } 

i've tried using document method apache xmlconfiguration , getelementbyid have returned null far.

i noticed in code passing element object writer's println function in:

keywriter.println(keyvalue); 

this print null value in file. try replacing with:

keywriter.println(keyvalue.gettextcontent());