Free XML Parser Tutorial: XML parsers based on either the Document Object Model (DOM) or the Simple API for XML (SAX) each provide unique advantages. The choice depends on such requirements as throughput, response time, and resource usage. This free XML parser tutorial has considered the analysis of XML parsing alone. The importance of efficient parsing depends on usage. Learn more about Java XML parsers for Java XML, HTML, SGML parsing and more.

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by Padma Apparao, senior performance architect, Software Solutions Group, Intel Corp.

Parsers based on either DOM or SAX each provide unique advantages; requirements such as throughput, response time, and resource usage should guide the choice between one or the other.

The benefits of XML spring primarily from the standard's inherent flexibility and its suitability for use with any kind of data at any depth of complexity. The extensibility features of XML enable one to define new tags as needed. XML also provides validation checks for structural correctness of documents by defining Data Type Definitions (DTDs) and Schemas. XML also provides media independence to publish content in multiple formats.

The portability and extensibility of both XML and Java technology make them a solid choice for the flexibility and wide availability requirements of the Web. Java revolutionized the programming world by providing a platform- independent programming language. XML takes the revolution a step further with a platform-independent language for interchanging data. The two together make the entire solution of building and deploying applications a portable one.

As XML is evolving as a standard for data communication, Intel is working to optimize the software stack on Intel® architecture, as well as looking for opportunities to build features into the silicon that will benefit XML processing technologies. This article reviews some of the things that Intel is doing to understand and enhance what lies under the hood for XML processing, to enhance our contributions in that space.

The primary XML parser technologies are SAX and DOM
An XML document first has to be parsed, and after that, several operations can be performed on it. The processing can take the form of XPath, XSLT, XQuery, and other operations. In this paper, I will discuss only XML parsing and the performance results from a series of experiments. There are two main technologies for XML parsing: the Simple API for XML (SAX) and the Document Object Model API (DOM).