Java Code to convert XML fragment to DOM fragment

// Parses a string containing XML and returns a DocumentFragment
// containing the nodes of the parsed XML.

public static DocumentFragment parseXml(Document doc, String fragment) {
// Wrap the fragment in an arbitrary element
fragment = ""+fragment+"";

try {
// Create a DOM builder and parse the fragment
DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();

Document d = factory.newDocumentBuilder().parse(
new InputSource(new StringReader(fragment)));

// Import the nodes of the new document into doc so tha they

// will be compatible with doc
Node node = doc.importNode(d.getDocumentElement(), true);

// Create the document fragment node to hold the new nodes
DocumentFragment docfrag = doc.createDocumentFragment();

// Move the nodes into the fragment
while (node.hasChildNodes()) {
docfrag.appendChild(node.removeChild(node.getFirstChild()));
}

// Return the fragment
return docfrag;
} catch (SAXException e) {
// A parsing error occurred; the xml input is not valid
} catch (ParserConfigurationException e) {
} catch (IOException e) {
}
return null;
}

Here's an example that uses the method:
// Obtain an XML document; this method is implemented in
// e510 The Quintessential Program to Create a DOM Document from an XML File
Document doc = parseXmlFile("infilename.xml", false);

// Create a fragment
DocumentFragment frag = parseXml(doc, "hello joe");

// Append the new fragment to the end of the root element
Element element = doc.getDocumentElement();
element.appendChild(frag);