Should I still be using JDOM with Java 5 or 6?

Question

I've been using JDOM for general XML parsing for a long time, but get the feeling that there must be something better, or at least more lightweight, for Java 5 or 6.

There's nothing wrong with the JDOM API, but I don't like having to include Xerces with my deployments. Is there a more lightweight alternative, if all I want to do is read in an XML file or write one out?

Answer 1

The best lightweight alternative is, in my opinion, XOM, but JDOM is still a very good API, and I see no reason to replace it.

It doesn't have a dependency on Xerces, though (at least, it doesn't need the Apache Xerces distro, it works alongside the Xerces that's packaged into the JRE).

Answer 2

I've used the javax.xml.stream package (XMLStreamReader/XMLStreamWriter) to read and write XML using xml pull/push techniques. It's worked for me so far.