Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Java and XML
Release 1.4 of the SDK introduced capabilities for processing
Extensible Markup Language
(XML)
documents as part of the standard set of class libraries. These are collectively referred to as JAXP, the
Java API for XML. In this chapter and the next we will be exploring not only how we can read XML
documents, but also how we can create and modify them. This chapter provides a brief outline of XML
and some related topics, plus a practical introduction to reading XML documents from within your Java
programs using one of the two available mechanisms for this. In the next chapter we will discuss the
second approach to reading XML documents, as well as how we can modify them and create new ones.
Inevitably, we can only skim the surface in a lot of areas since XML itself is a huge topic. However, you
should find enough in this chapter and the next to give you a good feel for what XML is about, and how
you can handle XML documents in Java.
In this chapter you will learn:
What a well-formed XML document is
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What constitutes a valid XML document
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What the components in an XML document are, and how they are used
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What a DTD is and how it is defined
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What namespaces are and why you use them
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What the SAX and DOM APIs are, and how they different.
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How you read documents using SAX
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