private static boolean hasChildNodes(Node param) {
        if (!param.hasChildNodes()) {
            return false;
        }

        NodeList nodeList = param.getChildNodes();
        for (int i = 0; i < nodeList.getLength(); i++) {
            Node item = nodeList.item(i);
            if (item.getNodeType() == 1) {
                return true;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
Use this to build a list of components for a composite item (e.g.
CompositeMetadataFilter, FetcherManager), each with their own configurations

@param compositeElementName
@param itemName
@param is
@throws TikaConfigException
@throws IOException
tika-core/src/main/java/org/apache/tika/config/ConfigBase.java