Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition) General Discussion

I am looking for a way to read an XML file to a hashmap.
So far I have learned to use javax.xml.parsers.*; tools to read the XML file
and I can send different elements of the XML file to the screen all day.
here is some snippets of what I'm doing now:
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public class GLDefaultLoader {
  protected String xmlFileName = "gl.xml";
  private Document loadXML(String filename) throws Exception {
    filename= "gl.xml";
    Document doc = null;
    try {
      DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
      DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder();
      db.setErrorHandler(new com.abcsinc.fwk.dom.MySaxErrorHandler());
       doc = db.parse(new File("gl.xml").getAbsolutePath());
    } // after this we do variuos catches
// here Im getting started on my hashmap
 private HashMap buildGLDefaultsItems(Document doc) throws IOException,
      ParserConfigurationException,
      SAXException {
    HashMap hashMap = new HashMap();

    doc.getDocumentElement().normalize();
    System.out.println("Root element of the doc is " + doc.getDocumentElement().getNodeName());

    NodeList listOfQueries = doc.getElementsByTagName("glDefaultsItem");
    int totalQueries = listOfQueries.getLength();
    System.out.println("Total number of Queries : " + totalQueries);

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I think I'm going In the right direction but I'm kinda stuck, wallowing in ignorance maybe, lol