public static void main(String[] args) throws SAXException, IOException, ParserConfigurationException {

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

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

            public void endElement(String uri, String localName,
                    String qName) throws SAXException {
            }

            public void characters(char ch[], int start, int length) throws SAXException {
                if (bfname) {
                    String s = new String(ch, start, length);
                    System.out.println("First Name : " + s);
                    bfname = false;
                }
            }
        };

        saxParser.parse("c:\\file.xml", handler);

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<company>
	<firstname /><lastname>lol</lastname>
</company>

String s = new String(ch, start, length);
                    System.out.println("First Name : " + s);
                    bfname = false;  // <--