code: @SuppressWarnings("unused")
  		private String getTextValue(Element ele, String tagName) {
  			String textVal = null;
  			NodeList nl = ele.getElementsByTagName(tagName);
  			if(nl != null && nl.getLength() > 0) {
  				Element el = (Element)nl.item(0);
  				textVal = el.getFirstChild().getNodeValue();
  			}
  
  			return textVal;
  		}
docs: I take a xml element and the tag name, look for the tag and get
  the text content
  i.e for <employee><name>John</name></employee> xml snippet if
  the Element points to employee node and tagName is 'name' I will return John