In startElement(), also initialize a StringBuffer to collect the
characters into.

You don't get them all at once necessarily.  Collect them into the
above-mentioned StringBuffer in the characters() method for use elsewhere.

In endElement(), convert the StringBuffer to a String and at this point,
you do have both the tag and the entire character contents.

At this point, I create whatever internal structure it is I'm building,
usually by a call to a separate builder that had been passed in via the
handler's constructor, using the tag and the extracted contents, and
then clear them out to be ready for the next one parsed.

In handle class:

        String localName =null;

       public void startElement(String uri, String localName,
                                String qName, Attributes attributes)
throws
               SAXException {

           this.localName = localName;
           }
       }

       public void endElement(String uri,
                              String localName,
                              String qName) throws SAXException {
           this.localName = null;

       }

       public void characters(char ch[], int start, int length) throws
               SAXException {
           if ("YourTagName".equalsIgnoreCase(localName)) {
                String desiredContext  =new String(ch, start,
length));
           }
       }