Menu
Does Java have a built in XML library for generating and parsing documents? If not, which third party one should I be using?
236
Java provides multiple options to parse XML documents. Following are the various types of parsers which are commonly used to parse XML documents. Dom Parser − Parses an XML document by loading the complete contents of the document and creating its complete hierarchical tree in memory.
It is considered as a standard means to transport and store data. JAVA provides excellent support and a rich set of libraries to parse, modify or inquire XML documents. This tutorial will teach you basic XML concepts and the usage of various types of Java based XML parsers in a simple and intuitive way.
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a flexible way to create common information formats and share both the format and the data on the World Wide Web, intranets, and elsewhere. XML can be used by any individual or group of individuals or companies that wants to share information in a consistent way.
XML provides a universal syntax for Java semantics (behavior). Simply put, this means that a developer can create descriptions for different types of data to make the data behave in various ways with Java programming code, and can later repeatedly use and modify those descriptions.
The Sun Java Runtime comes with the Xerces and Xalan implementations that provide the ability to parse XML (via the DOM and SAX intefaces), and also perform XSL transformations and execute XPath queries.
However, it is better to use the JAXP API to work on XML, since JAXP allows you to not worry about the underlying implementation used (Xerces or Crimson or any other). When you use JAXP, at runtime the JRE will use the service provider it can locate, to perform the needed operations. As indicated previously, Xerces/Xalan will be used since it is shipped with the Sun JRE (not others though), so you dont have to download and install a specific provider (say, a different version of Xerces, or Crimson).
A basic JAXP tutorial can be found in The J2EE 1.4 tutorial (Its from the J2EE tutorial, but it will help).
Do note that the Xerces/Xalan implementations provided by the Sun JRE, will not be found in the org.apache.xerces.* or org.apache.xalan.* packages. Instead, they will be present in the internal com.sun.org.apache.xerces.* and com.sun.org.apache.xalan.* packages.
By the way, JDOM is not an XML parser - it will use the parser provided to it by JAXP in order to provide you with an easier abstraction to work with.
152
Yes. It has a two options in the javax.xml package: DOM builds documents in memory, and SAX is an event-based approach.
You may also want to look at JDOM, which is a 3rd party library that offers a combination of the two, and can be easier to use.
39
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With
