I have an application which takes an XML document and uses a SAX reader to 
parse the document.  The xml document could have several "empty elements" 
like <Value /> or <Value></Value>.

I am currently using the startElement, characters, and endElement methods to 
help me determine what to do with the data.  My question is, how can I 
differentiate between an empty element and an starting element in a 
"structure".

<something>
    <somethingelse>data</somethingelse>
    <anemptyelement />
</something>

I am building a vector list of those data elements through the parser and 
these methods.  When endElement is called I push the data to the vector if 
the data is not an empty string.  In the example above <something> does not 
have any "data" and the string is empty so I bypass pushing the data to the 
vector.  The same problem occurs with <anemptyelement /> although I want to 
know in the main application that <anemptyelement> was simply blank this time.

Is there a method that would easily distinguish between an empty element and 
the other element?

Should I just keep track of the "levels" that I am in?  Devise a hack where 
<something> would be level 0 and <somethingelse> and <anemptyelement> would 
be in level 1.  I could add this concept of levels to startElement.  I am 
hoping for something more elegant.

Thanks for your time...