question: public static String elementValue ( Element element ) { if ( element == null ) return null ; element . normalize ( ) ; Node textNode = element . getFirstChild ( ) ; if ( textNode == null ) return null ; StringBuilder valueBuffer = new StringBuilder ( ) ; do { if ( textNode . getNodeType ( ) == Node . CDATA_SECTION_NODE || textNode . getNodeType ( ) == Node . TEXT_NODE ) { valueBuffer . append ( textNode . getNodeValue ( ) ) ; } } while ( ( textNode = textNode . getNextSibling ( ) ) != null ) ; return valueBuffer . toString ( ) ; }
target:  Return the text (node value) of the first node under this, works best if normalized. 