I am using the function listed below to handle characters events in
SAX.  It does not handle multiple sequential calls to this function
correctly.  For example, I am getting
"2 4 816 32 64" as a value for an element when processing <vec> 2 4 8
16 32 64 </vec>
because I am getting 2 calls to process the text in this element, one
for "2 4 8" and the other for  "16 32 64".  I have tried appending a
blank to the result after each call to this function, but that
sometimes splits numbers or words, depending on what is passed to this
function.

Is there a better way of handling multiple characters events? Thanks

public void characters(char[] chars, int start, int length) {
        while ( (length > 0) && Character.isWhitespace(chars[start]) )
{
            ++start;
            --length;
        }
        while ( (length > 0) &&
Character.isWhitespace(chars[start+length-1]) ) {
            --length;
        }
        if ( length > 0 ) {
           _text += new String(chars,start,length);
        }
}