I extended org.xml.sax.helpers.DefaultHandler. When during the parsing an element closes and my endElement callback executes, I would like to be able to tell whether in the XML the element is closed with a whole closing tag like </tag>, or instead it’s an element that opens and closes in the same tag like <tag ... />.

Is there a good way to distinguish between the two cases?

The reason why I would like this is that after the parsing I need to recreate the XML (with some modifications) from the read elements, and I would like that in the resulting XML the elements that have no characters in their body close in the same way as they did in the original XML.

I tried by checking that no characters were received for the current element, as an indication that the element closed on the opening tag itself, with ... />, but that also happens when there is a closing tag without characters in the body (<tag ...></tag>).