Thread: School Java Project Help (XML and links)

Hello everyone.

I'm pretty much a pure newbie when it comes to Java and OO programming in general. Anyway I have to take a Java class as part of my major and the project is literally stumping me.

Firstly, the prototype of my program is due before he even teaches us some of the material we need to do it. Hence my following questions. Sorry in advance if I started this thread in the wrong area.

The project is where we make a program to take a user's input in Town, State form and get the weather for that town. He wants us to use XML documents from NOAA.gov. I know I have to convert the Town, State format into a Latitude, Long type format to plug into the URL to access the XML file at NOAA.

So firstly... I'm gonna geocode the address. Google geocoding API requires you to send a request via URL to retrieve an XML document. How could I make my Java program execute a URL?

Secondly how would I access the data off that XML file it returns.

Like if I sent a request for my hometown of Apollo, PA to the Google geocoding service and it returns an XML document with tons of data... how do I pull that data for use in my program?

Sorry if I sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about. I don't even require in-depth answers, just get me going in the right direction.

Thanks guys!