为什么我不能删除我刚刚找到的子元素？NOT_FOUND_ERR

我正在构建一个脚本，该脚本必须修补XML文件，包括用另一个元素列表替换一个元素列表。以下函数将修补程序（涉及可能为空的同名元素列表）应用于父元素的同名元素列表（也可能是空列表）。（这只是修补逻辑的一小部分）。

为什么在运行代码时出现以下错误？

org.w3c.dom.DOMException: NOT_FOUND_ERR: An attempt is made to reference a node in a context where it does not exist.
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.dom.ParentNode.internalRemoveChild(ParentNode.java:503)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.dom.ParentNode.removeChild(ParentNode.java:484)
    at CombineSweeps$PTReplaceNodeList.apply(CombineSweeps.java:514)

（下面标注了第 514 行。据我所知，我刚刚验证了该元素是否存在（因为NodeList是实时的，它的第一个条目将始终是下一个匹配项或空值）。有趣的是，这并不总是一个问题。

private static class PTReplaceNodeList extends PTBase {
    private final String name;
    private final String nextElement;
    private final List<Node> childList;

    ...

    int apply(Document document, Node parent, Node node_unused) {
        NodeList nodes;
        // A marker for where to insert our nodes.
        // We make a guess using nextElement (if null, means at end).
        Node refNode = null;
        if (parent instanceof Document) {   // root element
            Document parDoc = (Document) parent;
            nodes = parDoc.getElementsByTagName(name);
            if (nextElement != null) {
                refNode = parDoc.getElementsByTagName(nextElement).item(0);
            }
        } else {
            Element parElt = (Element) parent;
            nodes = parElt.getElementsByTagName(name);
            if (nextElement != null) {
                refNode = parElt.getElementsByTagName(nextElement).item(0);
            }
        }

        while (true) {
            // iterate through the list of nodes
            Node node = nodes.item(0);
            if (node == null) {
                break;
            }

            // Reliable guess: insert before node following last in list
            refNode = node.getNextSibling();

            parent.removeChild(node);  // line 514
        }

        for (Node child : childList) {
            Node imported = document.importNode(child, true);
            parent.insertBefore(imported, refNode);
        }
        return childList.size();
    }
}

编辑：我使用以下函数作为替代（请参阅接受的答案）。getElementsByTagName()

/** Returns all direct children of node with name name.
 *
 * Note: not the same as getElementsByTagName(), which finds all descendants. */
static List<Node> getChildNodes( Node node, String name ){
    ArrayList<Node> r = new ArrayList<Node>();
    NodeList children = node.getChildNodes();
    int l = children.getLength();
    for( int i = 0; i < l; ++i ){
        if( name.equals( children.item(i).getNodeName() ) )
            r.add( children.item(i) );
    }
    return r;
}