Parse and output XML document while preserving attribute order

QUESTION: How can I take in an element with attributes from an XML and output the same element and attributes while preserving the order of those attributes?

The following code will parse and XML document and generate (practically) unchanged output. However, all attributes are ordered a-z
Example: The following element
<work_item_type work_item_db_site="0000000000000000" work_item_db_id="0" work_item_type_code="3" user_tag_ident="Step" name="Work Step" gmt_last_updated="2008-12-31T18:00:00.000000000" last_upd_db_site="0000000000000000" last_upd_db_id="0" rstat_type_code="1">
</work_item_type>

is output as:
<work_item_type gmt_last_updated="2008-12-31T18:00:00.000000000" last_upd_db_id="0" last_upd_db_site="0000000000000000" name="Work Step" rstat_type_code="1" user_tag_ident="Step" work_item_db_id="0" work_item_db_site="0000000000000000" work_item_type_code="3">
</work_item_type>

As you may notice, there is no difference in these besides order of the attributes!


Please, someone help me out with this! I have a feeling the solution is simple :D

The following code take source.xml and outputs it to a new file DEST_filename

Code:

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private void OutputFile(String DEST_filename, String style_filename){
        //StreamSource stylesheet = new StreamSource(style_filename);

        try{
                File dest_file = new File(DEST_filename);
                if(!dest_file.exists())
                    dest_file.createNewFile();

                TransformerFactory tranFactory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
                Transformer aTransformer = tranFactory.newTransformer();
               
                aTransformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.ENCODING, "UTF-8");
                Source src = new DOMSource("source.xml");
                Result dest = new StreamResult(dest_file);

                aTransformer.transform(src, dest);
                System.out.println("Finished");
        }
        catch(Exception e){
                System.err.print(e);
                System.exit(-1);
        }
    }

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