Which is the best library for XML parsing in java

Question

I m searching the java library for parsing XML  complex configuration and data files   I googled a bit but couldn t found other than dom4j  Seems like they are working on V2    I have taken look at commons configuration but didn t like it  Other apache projects on XML seems under hibernation  I haven t evaluated dom4j by myself but just wanted to know - Does java has other  Good  open source xml parsing libraries  and how s your experience with dom4j   After the  Voo s answer let me ask another one - Should I use java s built-in classes or any third-party library like dom4j   What are the advantages

User · Answer

You don t need an external library for parsing XML in Java  Java has come with built-in implementations for SAX and DOM for ages

User · Answer

VTD-XML is the heavy duty XML parsing lib... it is better than others in virtually every way... here is a 2013 paper that analyzes all XML processing frameworks available in java platform...

http://sdiwc.us/digitlib/journal_paper.php?paper=00000582.pdf

User · Answer

For folks interested in using JDOM  but afraid that hasn t been updated in a while  especially not leveraging Java generics   there is a fork called CoffeeDOM which exactly addresses these aspects and modernizes the JDOM API  read more here   http   cdmckay org blog 2011 05 20 introducing-coffeedom-a-jdom-fork-for-java-5   and download it from the project page at   https   github com cdmckay coffeedom

User · Answer

Nikita s point is an excellent one  don t confuse mature with bad   XML hasn t changed much   JDOM would be another alternative to DOM4J

User · Answer

Actually Java supports 4 methods to parse XML out of the box   DOM Parser Builder  The whole XML structure is loaded into memory and you can use the well known DOM methods to work with it  DOM also allows you to write to the document with Xslt transformations  Example   public static void parse   throws ParserConfigurationException  IOException  SAXException       DocumentBuilderFactory factory   DocumentBuilderFactory newInstance        factory setValidating true       factory setIgnoringElementContentWhitespace true       DocumentBuilder builder   factory newDocumentBuilder        File file   new File  test xml        Document doc   builder parse file          Do something with the document here      SAX Parser  Solely to read a XML document  The Sax parser runs through the document and calls callback methods of the user  There are methods for start end of a document  element and so on  They re defined in org xml sax ContentHandler and there s an empty helper class DefaultHandler   public static void parse   throws ParserConfigurationException  SAXException       SAXParserFactory factory   SAXParserFactory newInstance        factory setValidating true       SAXParser saxParser   factory newSAXParser        File file   new File  test xml        saxParser parse file  new ElementHandler           specify handler     StAx Reader Writer  This works with a datastream oriented interface  The program asks for the next element when it s ready just like a cursor iterator  You can also create documents with it   Read document   public static void parse   throws XMLStreamException  IOException       try  FileInputStream fis   new FileInputStream  test xml              XMLInputFactory xmlInFact   XMLInputFactory newInstance            XMLStreamReader reader   xmlInFact createXMLStreamReader fis           while reader hasNext                  reader next       do something here                     Write document   public static void parse   throws XMLStreamException  IOException       try  FileOutputStream fos   new FileOutputStream  test xml             XMLOutputFactory xmlOutFact   XMLOutputFactory newInstance            XMLStreamWriter writer   xmlOutFact createXMLStreamWriter fos           writer writeStartDocument            writer writeStartElement  test               write stuff         writer writeEndElement              JAXB  The newest implementation to read XML documents  Is part of Java 6 in v2  This allows us to serialize java objects from a document  You read the document with a class that implements a interface to javax xml bind Unmarshaller  you get a class for this from JAXBContext newInstance   The context has to be initialized with the used classes  but you just have to specify the root classes and don t have to worry about static referenced classes  You use annotations to specify which classes should be elements   XmlRootElement  and which fields are elements  XmlElement  or attributes   XmlAttribute  what a surprise    public static void parse   throws JAXBException  IOException       try  FileInputStream adrFile   new FileInputStream  test              JAXBContext ctx   JAXBContext newInstance RootElementClass class           Unmarshaller um   ctx createUnmarshaller            RootElementClass rootElement    RootElementClass  um unmarshal adrFile             Write document   public static void parse RootElementClass out  throws IOException  JAXBException       try  FileOutputStream adrFile   new FileOutputStream  test xml              JAXBContext ctx   JAXBContext newInstance RootElementClass class           Marshaller ma   ctx createMarshaller            ma marshal out  adrFile             Examples shamelessly copied from some old lecture slides  -   Edit  About  which API should I use    Well it depends - not all APIs have the same capabilities as you see  but if you have control over the classes you use to map the XML document JAXB is my personal favorite  really elegant and simple solution  though I haven t used it for really large documents  it could get a bit complex   SAX is pretty easy to use too and just stay away from DOM if you don t have a really good reason to use it - old  clunky API in my opinion  I don t think there are any modern 3rd party libraries that feature anything especially useful that s missing from the STL and the standard libraries have the usual advantages of being extremely well tested  documented and stable

User · Answer

Java supports two methods for XML parsing out of the box.

SAXParser

You can use this parser if you want to parse large XML files and/or don't want to use a lot of memory.

http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/javax/xml/parsers/SAXParserFactory.html

Example: http://www.mkyong.com/java/how-to-read-xml-file-in-java-sax-parser/

DOMParser

You can use this parser if you need to do XPath queries or need to have the complete DOM available.

http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/javax/xml/parsers/DocumentBuilderFactory.html

Example: http://www.mkyong.com/java/how-to-read-xml-file-in-java-dom-parser/

User · Answer

If you want a DOM-like API - that is  one where the XML parser turns the document into a tree of Element and Attribute nodes - then there are at least four to choose from  DOM itself  JDOM  DOM4J  and XOM  The only possible reason to use DOM is because it s perceived as a standard and is supplied in the JDK  in all other respects  the others are all superior  My own preference  for its combination of simplicity  power  and performance  is XOM   And of course  there are other styles of processing  low-level parser interfaces  SAX and StAX   data-object binding interfaces  JAXB   and high-level declarative languages  XSLT  XQuery  XPath   Which is best for you depends on your project requirements and your personal taste

[java] Which is the best library for XML parsing in java

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