re: Tearing my hair out!!!

Hi folks,
I have a parser parsing out CURRENT_TEMP from an XML file at the moment, but when I use the Stringbuffer() method to handle the temperature to pass it into the variable this.currentTemp I don't think it is working. The reason I think this, is that when I do a test on the this.currentTemp variable like so:

if (this.currentTemp == null)
{
System.err.println("currentTemp==null");
systemError();
return;
}

the program prints out currentTemp==null. Anyways, this is the way I have use the Stringbuffer below:



StringBuffer buffer;
String currentTemp;

/**************************************************************************
* The following methods are SAX callback routines. Some of them are empty.
**************************************************************************/
public void setDocumentLocator(Locator locator) { }

/**
* New parsing is started.
*/
public void startDocument() throws SAXException
{
System.out.println("at start of the XML file");
this.currentTemp = null;
}

public void endDocument() throws SAXException
{
System.out.println("at end of the XML file");
}

/**
* Started processing a new element. If the tag is "ROADSURFACE_TEMP",
* prepare a buffer to keep the content.
*/
public void startElement(String name, Attributes atts) throws SAXException
{
if (name.equals("ROADSURFACE_TEMP"))
{
this.buffer = new StringBuffer();
}
}

/**
* An element is just closed. If the element is "CurrTemp",
* copy the content to this.currTemp.
*/
public void endElement(String name) throws SAXException {
if (name.equals("ROADSURFACE_TEMP"))
{
this.currentTemp = this.buffer.toString();
}
}

/**
* Accumulate characters if the buffer has been allocated.
*/
public void characters(char ch[], int start, int length) throws SAXException
{
if (this.buffer != null)
{
//this is just checking if the programs getting this far, which it isn't
System.out.println("hello there");
this.buffer.append(ch, start, length);
System.out.println(this.buffer);
}
}



Any help is very much appreciated.....Thank you in advance!