XML Parsers
(DOM & SAX)
XML Parsers
• An XML parser is a software library or package that
provides interfaces for client applications to work with an
XML document.
• The XML Parser is designed to read the XML document and
create a way(interface or API) for programs to use XML.
XML Parsers
Two Types of parsers
DOM Parser
SAX Parser
DOM (Document Object Model)
• DOM is a platform that allows programs and scripts to
dynamically access and update the content and structure of a
XML documents.
• The Document Object Model (DOM) is a programming API
for HTML and XML documents. It defines the logical
structure of documents and provides interface(API) for
access documents.
• The Document Object Model can be used with any
programming language.
• DOM exposes the whole document to applications.
DOM (Document Object Model)
• The XML DOM defines a standard way for accessing and
manipulating XML documents. It presents an XML document
as a tree-structure.
• The tree structure makes easy to describe an XML document. A
tree structure contains root element (as parent), child element
and so on.
• The XML DOM makes a tree-structure view for an XML
document.
• We can access all elements through the DOM tree. We can
modify or delete their content and also create new elements.
DOM (Document Object Model)
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<college>
<student>
<firstname>Durga</firstname>
<lastname>Madhu</lastname>
<contact>999123456</contact>
<email>dm@abc.com</email>
<address>
<city>Hyderabad</city>
<state>TS</state>
<pin>500088</pin>
</address>
</student>
</college>
DOM (Document Object Model)
Let's see the tree-structure representation of the above example.
DOM (Document Object Model)
• We need a parser to read XML document into memory and
converts into XML DOM Object that can be accesses with
any programming language (here we can use PHP).
• The DOM parser functions are part of the PHP core. There is
no installation needed to use these functions.
• To load XML document in PHP
$xmlDoc = new DOMDocument();
this statement creates an object.
$xmlDoc->load("note.xml");
this statement loads a xml file by using object.
DOM (Document Object Model)
These are some typical DOM properties in php:
• X -> nodeName - the name of X
• X -> nodeValue - the value of X
• X->parentNode - the parent node of X
• X->childNodes - the child nodes of X
• X->attributes - the attributes nodes of X
Where X is Node object.
“note.xml”
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<student>
<num>521</num>
<name>xyz</name>
<age>30</age>
</student>
DOM (Document Object Model)
“Note.php”
<?php
$xmlDoc = new DOMDocument();
$xmlDoc->load("note.xml");
$x = $xmlDoc->documentElement;
foreach ($x->childNodes AS $item) {
print $item->nodeValue . "<br>";
}
?>
Output:
SAX
Simple API for XML
XML Parsers
What is an XML parser?
– An XML parser is a software library or package
that provides interfaces for client applications to
work with an XML document.
– The XML Parser is designed to read the XML and
create a way for programs to use XML.
XML Parsers
Two types of parser
– SAX (Simple API for XML)
• Event driven API
• Sends events to the application as the document is read
– DOM (Document Object Model)
• Reads the entire document into memory in a tree
structure
Simple API for XML
SAX Parser
When should I use it?
– Large documents
– Memory constrained devices
– If you need not to modify the document
SAX Parser
Which languages are supported?
– Java
– Perl
– C++
– Python
SAX Implementation in Java
• Create a class which extends the SAX event handler
Import org.xml.sax.*;
import org.xml.sax.helpers.ParserFactory;
Public class SaxApplication extends HandlerBase {
public static void main(String args[]) {
}
}
SAX Implementation in Java
• Create a SAX Parser
public static void main(args[]) {
String parserName = “org.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser”;
try {
SaxApplication app = new SaxApplication();
Parser parser = ParserFactory.makeParser(parserName);
parser.setDocumentHandler(app);
parser.setErrorHandler(app);
parser.parse(new InputSource(args[0]));
} catch (Throwable t) {
// Handle exceptions
}
}
SAX Implementation in Java
• Most important methods to parse
– void startDocument()
• Called once when document parsing begins
– void endDocument()
• Called once when parsing ends
– void startElement(...)
• Called each time an element begin tag is encountered
– void endElement(...)
• Called each time an element end tag is encountered
– void error(...)
• Called once when parsing error occurred.
DOM SAX
Tree model parser (Object based) (Tree Event based parser (Sequence of
of nodes). events).
DOM loads the file into the memory and SAX parses the file as it reads it, i.e.
then parse- the file. parses node by node.
Has memory constraints since it loads No memory constraints as it does not
the whole XML file before parsing. store the XML content in the memory.
DOM is read and write (can insert or SAX is read only i.e. can’t insert or
delete nodes). delete the node.
If the XML content is small, then prefer Use SAX parser when XML content is
DOM parser. large.
Backward and forward search is possible SAX reads the XML file from top to
for searching the tags and evaluation of bottom and backward navigation is not
the information inside the tags. possible.
Slower at run time. Faster at run time.
