//I have 2 fields in a class
// String nameValue;
// StringBuilder name;

public String getNameFromXml(String xml) {
        try {

            SAXParserFactory factory = SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
            SAXParser saxParser = factory.newSAXParser();
            DefaultHandler handler = new DefaultHandler() {

                boolean firstName = false;

                public void startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName, Attributes attributes) throws SAXException {
                    name = new StringBuilder();
                    if (qName.equalsIgnoreCase("firstname")) {
                        firstName = true;
                    }
                }

                public void characters(char ch[], int start, int length) throws SAXException {

                    if (firstName) {
                        name.append(new String(ch, start, length));
                    }

                }

        public void endElement(String uri, String localName, String qName) throws SAXException {
                    if (qName.equalsIgnoreCase("firstname")) {
                        firstName = false;
                        nameValue = name.toString();
                    }
                }

            };

            saxParser.parse(xml.toString(), handler);

        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return nameValue;
    }