Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition) General Discussion

I am attempting to write a pretty simple XML file from scratch. If there is a file there
already of the same name/path I want to overwrite it. Anyways, I build a Node
using this function:

	private Element createBalancingNode(Balancing balance,Document doc,Element top){

		Node udClaimsWritten 	= createSimpleNodeWithTextNodeChild(XMLBalancingConstants.UPDATE_CLAIMS_WRITTEN_XML_NODE					,balance.getUpdateClaimsWritten(),doc);
		top.appendChild(udClaimsWritten);
return top;
}//end function

//this is the function called above to create a simple text node...
	private Node createSimpleNodeWithTextNodeChild(String nodeName,String textValue,Document doc){
		Node node 		= doc.createElement(XMLBalancingConstants.UPDATE_CLAIMS_WRITTEN_XML_NODE);
		Node textNode 	= doc.createTextNode(textValue);
		CR				= doc.createTextNode("\n");
		node.appendChild(textNode);
		node.appendChild(CR);
		return node;
	}

			String filepath = "C:\\surs\\program\\java\\Balancing\\Balancing.XML";
			DocumentBuilder DB  = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance().newDocumentBuilder();
			Document Doc = DB.newDocument();
			Element root	= Doc.createElement(XMLBalancingConstants.XML_ROOT_NODE_NAME);
			root = createBalancingNode(balancing,Doc,root);
			//root.appendChild(balancer);
			Doc.appendChild(root);
			XMLWriter.writeXMLFile(Doc,new File(filepath));


//below is the 'writeXMLFile' function referenced above...
			TransformerFactory tf = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
			Transformer trans = tf.newTransformer();
			DOMSource DOM = new DOMSource(Doc);
			StreamResult SR = new StreamResult(file);
			trans.transform(new DOMSource(Doc), new StreamResult(file));

so, when i run this code i am getting this error:
java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.xml.utils.TreeWalker.dispatachChars(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xml.utils.TreeWalker.startNode(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xml.utils.TreeWalker.traverse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xalan.transformer.TransformerIdentityImpl.transform(Unknown Source)
at XML.XMLWriter.XMLWriter.writeXMLFile(XMLWriter.java:29)
at Balancing.XML.XMLBalancingFileWriter.buildXMLBalancingFile(XMLBalancingFileWriter.java:54)
at Balancing.XML.XMLBalancingFileWriter.main(XMLBalancingFileWriter.java:137)


and i'm not sure why. nothing that is passed into this function is null as far
as i can tell.

i think it has something to do with how i create a root node. i am still a bit rusty
with XML so it is very possible that i am forgetting something.

Can root nodes be appended like any other? My basic algorithm for creating
an xml file from scratch is this:
1-create a Document object
2-create an Element
3-append whatever you want in your document to the element created above
4-append your element to the document, which makes it the root element
5-output your Document as a DOMSource, which creates a valid XML file.

am i missing a step there? I'm off to go read some old code. Can anyone helP? thanks!