XML programming in Java technology, Part 2

Level: Introductory

Doug Tidwell (dtidwell@us.ibm.com), XML Evangelist, IBM

09 Jul 2004

	Register now or sign in using your IBM ID and password.

In an earlier tutorial, Doug Tidwell looked at the basics of XML parsing in the Java language. He covered the major APIs (DOM, SAX, and JDOM), and went through a number of examples that demonstrated the basic tasks common to most XML applications. In this tutorial, he looks at more difficult things that weren't covered in Part 1, such as working with namespaces, validating XML documents, building XML structures without a typical XML document, converting between one API and another, and manipulating tree structures. He also shows you some of the more esoteric features of DOM, SAX, JDOM, and JAXP.

Prerequisites

This tutorial assumes that you know how to compile and run a Java program, and that you know how to set your CLASSPATH variable.

This tutorial covers these APIs:

• The Document Object Model (DOM), Levels 1, 2, and 3
• The Simple API for XML (SAX), Version 2.0
• JDOM, a simple Java API created by Jason Hunter and Brett McLaughlin
• The Java API for XML Processing (JAXP)

It discusses the following approaches to validation are discussed W3C XML Schema, RELAX NG, and Schematron.

System requirements

You will need JavaScript enabled in your browser.

To run the examples, set up your machine as follows:

1. Download the Xerces XML parser at the Apache XML Project (http://xml.apache.org/xerces2-j/) or directly from the download page (http://xml.apache.org/xerces2-j/download.cgi).
2. Unzip the downloaded file from Apache to create a directory named xerces-2_5_0 (or something similar, depending on the release level of the parser). The JAR files you need (xercesImpl.jar and xml-apis.jar) should be in the Xerces root directory.
3. Download the latest version of JDOM from the JDOM project's Web site (http://jdom.org/).
4. Unzip the file downloaded from JDOM to create a directory named jdom-b9 (or something similar). The JAR file you need (jdom.jar) should be in the build directory.
5. Finally, download the zip file of examples (x-java2_code_files.zip) for this tutorial and unzip the file.
6. Add the current directory (.), xercesImpl.jar, xml-apis.jar, and jdom.jar to your CLASSPATH.

Other tutorials in this series are:

• XML programming in Java technology, Part 1
• XML programming in Java technology, Part 3

Duration

Under two hours

Formats

Share this.... Digg this story del.icio.us Slashdot it!

Back to top