Added DomUtils.getChildElements() method. Also refactored ConfigBeanDefinitionParser.parse() to use it.

org.springframework.core/build.xml

@@ -22,3 +22,4 @@
 		</ivy:makepom>
 	</target>
 </project>
+ 

org.springframework.core/src/main/java/org/springframework/util/xml/DomUtils.java

@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ import org.springframework.util.Assert;
  * @author Rob Harrop
  * @author Costin Leau
  * @author Arjen Poutsma
+ * @author Luke Taylor
  * @see org.w3c.dom.Node
  * @see org.w3c.dom.Element
  * @since 1.2
@@ -117,6 +118,25 @@ public abstract class DomUtils {
 		return (child != null ? getTextValue(child) : null);
 	}
 
+	/**
+	 * Retrieve all child elements of the given DOM element	
+
+	 * @param ele		   the DOM element to analyze
+	 * @return a List of child <code>org.w3c.dom.Element</code> instances
+	 */
+	public static List<Element> getChildElements(Element ele) {
+		Assert.notNull(ele, "Element must not be null");
+		NodeList nl = ele.getChildNodes();
+		List<Element> childEles = new ArrayList<Element>();
+		for (int i = 0; i < nl.getLength(); i++) {
+			Node node = nl.item(i);
+			if (node instanceof Element) {
+				childEles.add((Element) node);
+			}
+		}
+		return childEles;
+	}
+
 	/**
 	 * Extract the text value from the given DOM element, ignoring XML comments. <p>Appends all CharacterData nodes and
 	 * EntityReference nodes into a single String value, excluding Comment nodes.