XML in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Name

specified: boolean

Synopsis

This indicates whether this attribute was explicitly set in the XML source for the parent element or is a default value specified in the DTD or schema. Read-only.

Java binding

public boolean getSpecified( );

Java example

// Dump element attribute names
for (int i = 0; i < elem.getAttributes( ).getLength( ); i++) {
    // temporarily alias the attribute
    attr = (Attr)elem.getAttributes( ).item(i);
    // only show attributes that were explicitly included in the XML 
    //source file
     // (i.e. ignore default attributes from the DTD.)
     if (attr.getSpecified( )) {
         System.out.println(attr.getName( ));
    }
}