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Yes! Using DOM4J parser, we can parse, modify and create a XML document.

When you are working with the DOM4J, there are several methods you'll use often −

• SAXReader.read(xmlSource)() - Build the DOM4J document from the xml source.

• Document.getRootElement() - Get the root element of the XML.

• Element.node(index) - Get the XML node at particular index in the element.

• Element.attributes() - Get all the attributes of an element.

• Node.valueOf(Name) - Get the value of an attribute with given name of the element.

The DOM4J defines several Java classes. Here are the most common classes −

• Document - Represents the entire XML document. A Document object is often referred to as a DOM tree.

• Element - Represents an XML element. Element object has methods to manipulate its child elements,its text, attributes and namespaces.

• Attribute Represents an attribute of an element. Attribute has method to get and set the value of attribute. It has parent and attribute type.

• Node Represents Element, Attribute or ProcessingInstruction

DOM4J gives java developers flexibility and easy maintainablity of xml parsing code. It is light weight and quick API.

When you parse an XML document with a DOM4J parser, you get the flexibility to get back a tree structure that contains all of the elements of your document without impacting the memory footprint of the application. The DOM4J provides a variety of utility functions you can use to examine the contents and structure of the document in case document is well structured and its structure is known. DOM4J uses XPath expression to navigate through the XML document.

You should use a DOM4J parser when −

• You need to know a lot about the structure of a document

• You need to move parts of the document around (you might want to sort certain elements, for example)

• You need to use the information in the document more than once

• You are a java developer and want to leverage java optimized parsing of XML.

DOM4J is an open source, java based library to parse XML document and it is highly flexible, high-performance, and memory-efficient API. It is java optimized, it uses java collection like List and Arrays. It works with DOM, SAX, XPath and XSLT. It can parse large XML document with very low memory footprint.

No! XPath parser is used to to navigate XML Document only. It is better to use DOM parser for creating XML.

XPath uses a path expression to select node or list of nodes from an xml document. Following is the list of useful paths and expression to select any node/ list of nodes from an xml document.

Predicate are used to find specific node or a node containing specific value and are defined using [...] .

Following are the key components of XPath −

• Structure Definitions - XPath defines the parts of an XML document like element, attribute, text, namespace, processing-instruction, comment, and document nodes.

• Path Expressions XPath provides powerful path expressions select nodes or list of nodes in XML documents.

• Standard FunctionsXPath provides a rich library of standard functions for manipulation of string values, numeric values, date and time comparison, node and QName manipulation, sequence manipulation, Boolean values etc.

• Major part of XSLTXPath is one of the major element in XSLT standard and is must have knowledge in order to work with XSLT documents.

• W3C recommendationXPath is official recommendation of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

The XPath is an official recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It defines a language to find information in an XML file. It is used to traverse elements and attributes of an XML document. XPath provides various type of expressions which can be used to enquire relevant information from the XML document.

This interface specifies methods for creating an event.

• writeStartElement(String localName) - Add start element of given name.

• writeEndElement(String localName) - Add end element of given name.

• writeAttribute(String localName, String value) - Write attribute to an element.

This class provide iterator of events which can be used to iterate over events as they occur while parsing the XML document

• int next() - used to retrieve next event.

• boolean hasNext() - used to check further events exists or not

• String getText() - used to get text of an element

• String getLocalName() - used to get name of an element

This interface specifies methods for creating an event.

• add(Event event) - Add event containing elements to XML.

This class provide iterator of events which can be used to iterate over events as they occur while parsing the XML document.

• StartElement asStartElement() - used to retrieve value and attributes of element.

• EndElement asEndElement() - called at the end of a element.

• Characters asCharacters() - can be used to obtain characters such a CDATA, whitespace etc.

• We have no random access to an XML document since it is processed in a forward-only manner

• If you need to keep track of data the parser has seen or change the order of items, you must write the code and store the data on your own

You should use a StAX parser when −

• You can process the XML document in a linear fashion from the top down.

• The document is not deeply nested.

• You are processing a very large XML document whose DOM tree would consume too much memory. Typical DOM implementations use ten bytes of memory to represent one byte of XML.

• The problem to be solved involves only part of the XML document.

• Data is available as soon as it is seen by the parser, so StAX works well for an XML document that arrives over a stream.

Yes! StAX is a PULL API.

Yes! Using StAX parser, we can parse, modify and create a XML document.

StAX is a JAVA based API to parse XML document in a similar way as SAX parser does but StAX is a PULL API where as SAX is a PUSH API. It means in case of StAX parser, client application need to ask StAX parser to get information from XML whenever it needs but in case of SAX parser, client application is required to get information when SAX parser notifies the client application that information is available.

Yes! Using JDOM parser, we can parse, modify and create a XML document.

When you are working with the JDOM, there are several methods you'll use often −

• SAXBuilder.build(xmlSource) - Build the JDOM document from the xml source.

• Document.getRootElement() - Get the root element of the XML.

• Element.getName() - Get the name of the XML node.

• Element.getChildren() - Get all the direct child nodes of an element.

• Node.getChildren(Name) - Get all the direct child nodes with a given name.

• Node.getChild(Name) - Get first child node with given name.

The JDOM defines several Java classes. Here are the most common classes −

• Document - Represents the entire XML document. A Document object is often referred to as a DOM tree.

• Element - Represents an XML element. Element object has methods to manipulate its child elements,its text, attributes and namespaces.

• Attribute Represents an attribute of an element. Attribute has method to get and set the value of attribute. It has parent and attribute type.

• Text Represents the text of XML tag.

• Comment Represents the comments in a XML document.

When you parse an XML document with a JDOM parser, you get the flexibility to get back a tree structure that contains all of the elements of your document without impacting the memory footprint of the application. The JDOM provides a variety of utility functions you can use to examine the contents and structure of the document in case document is well structured and its structure is known.

JDOM gives java developers flexibility and easy maintainablity of xml parsing code. It is light weight and quick API.

You should use a JDOM parser when −

• You need to know a lot about the structure of a document.

• You need to move parts of the document around (you might want to sort certain elements, for example).

• You need to use the information in the document more than once.

• You are a java developer and want to leverage java optimized parsing of XML.

It is java optimized, it uses java collection like List and Arrays. It works with DOM and SAX APIs and combines the best of the two. It is of low memory footprint and is nearly as fast as SAX.

JDOM is an open source, java based library to parse XML document and it is typically java developer friendly API.

No! Using SAX parser, we can only parse or modify a XML document.

Attributes Interface specifies methods for processing the attributes connected to an element.

• int getLength() - Returns number of attributes.

• String getQName(int index)

• String getValue(int index)

• String getValue(String qname)

ContentHandler Interface specifies the callback methods that the SAX parser uses to notify an application program of the components of the XML document that it has seen.

• void startDocument() - Called at the beginning of a document.

• void endDocument() - Called at the end of a document.

• void startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName, Attributes atts) - Called at the beginning of an element.

• void endElement(String uri, String localName,String qName) - Called at the end of an element.

• void characters(char[] ch, int start, int length) - Called when character data is encountered.

• void ignorableWhitespace( char[] ch, int start, int length) - Called when a DTD is present and ignorable whitespace is encountered.

• void processingInstruction(String target, String data) - Called when a processing instruction is recognized.

• void setDocumentLocator(Locator locator)) - Provides a Locator that can be used to identify positions in the document.

• void skippedEntity(String name) - Called when an unresolved entity is encountered.

• void startPrefixMapping(String prefix, String uri) - Called when a new namespace mapping is defined.

• void endPrefixMapping(String prefix) - Called when a namespace definition ends its scope.

• We have no random access to an XML document since it is processed in a forward-only manner

• If you need to keep track of data the parser has seen or change the order of items, you must write the code and store the data on your own

You should use a SAX parser when −

• You can process the XML document in a linear fashion from the top down

• The document is not deeply nested

• You are processing a very large XML document whose DOM tree would consume too much memory.Typical DOM implementations use ten bytes of memory to represent one byte of XML

• The problem to be solved involves only part of the XML document

• Data is available as soon as it is seen by the parser, so SAX works well for an XML document that arrives over a stream

SAX (the Simple API for XML) is an event-based parser for xml documents.Unlike a DOM parser, a SAX parser creates no parse tree. SAX is a streaming interface for XML, which means that applications using SAX receive event notifications about the XML document being processed an element, and attribute, at a time in sequential order starting at the top of the document, and ending with the closing of the ROOT element.

SAX Parser is an event-based parser for xml documents.

SAX stands for Simple API for XML.

Yes! Using DOM parser, we can parse, modify or create a XML document.

When you are working with the DOM, there are several methods you'll use often −

• Document.getDocumentElement() - Returns the root element of the document.

• Node.getFirstChild() - Returns the first child of a given Node.

• Node.getLastChild() - Returns the last child of a given Node.

• Node.getNextSibling() - These methods return the next sibling of a given Node.

• Node.getPreviousSibling() - These methods return the previous sibling of a given Node.

• Node.getAttribute(attrName) - For a given Node, returns the attribute with the requested name.

The DOM defines several Java interfaces. Here are the most common interfaces −

• Node - The base datatype of the DOM.

• Element - The vast majority of the objects you'll deal with are Elements.

• Attr Represents an attribute of an element.

• Text The actual content of an Element or Attr.

• Document Represents the entire XML document. A Document object is often referred to as a DOM tree.

The DOM is a common interface for manipulating document structures. One of its design goals is that Java code written for one DOM-compliant parser should run on any other DOM-compliant parser without changes.

When you parse an XML document with a DOM parser, you get back a tree structure that contains all of the elements of your document. The DOM provides a variety of functions you can use to examine the contents and structure of the document.

You should use a DOM parser when −

• You need to know a lot about the structure of a document

• You need to move parts of the document around (you might want to sort certain elements, for example)

• You need to use the information in the document more than once

DOM stands for Document Object Model and it is an official recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It defines an interface that enables programs to access and update the style, structure,and contents of XML documents. XML parsers that support the DOM implement that interface.

DOM stands for Document Object Model.

Following are various types of parsers which are commonly used to parse XML documents −

• Dom Parser - Parses the document by loading the complete contents of the document and creating its complete hiearchical tree in memory.

• SAX Parser - Parses the document on event based triggers. Does not load the complete document into the memory.

• JDOM Parser - Parses the document in similar fashion to DOM parser but in more easier way.

• StAX Parser - Parses the document in similar fashion to SAX parser but in more efficient way.

• XPath Parser - Parses the XML based on expression and is used extensively in conjuction with XSLT.

• DOM4J Parser - A java library to parse XML, XPath and XSLT using Java Collections Framework , provides support for DOM, SAX and JAXP.

XML Parser provides way how to access or modify data present in an XML document. Java provides multiple options to parse XML document.

Parsing XML refers to going through XML document to access data or to modify data in one or other way.

Following are the disadvantages of XML usage −

• Redundant Syntax - Normally XML file contains lot of repeatitive terms.

• Verbose-Being a verbose language, XML file size increases the transmission and storage costs.

Following are the advantages that XML provides −

• Technology agnostic - Being plain text, XML is technology independent. It can be used by any technology for data storage and transmission purpose.

• Human readable- XML uses simple text format. It is human readable and understandable.

• Extensible - in XML, custom tags can be created and used very easily.

• Allow Validation - Using XSD, DTD and XML structure can be validated easily.

XML stands for Extensible Markup Language.