Overview

JADE XML allows JADE systems to parse, create, navigate, manipulate, and write XML documents. JADE provides the following alternative API models for the processing of XML documents.

• JADE XML Tree, which models an XML document as a tree of JADE objects.

  JADE XML Tree is a read-write API that can parse existing XML documents and create new ones. Each XML document is represented as a JadeXMLDocument object. Documents are searched, queried, and updated by invoking methods on this JadeXMLDocument object and the objects that it contains. (For more details, see "Jade XML Tree Model", later in this chapter.)

  Although JADE XML Tree model is very convenient when you require random access to widely separated parts of the original document, it is resource-intensive compared with the JADE XML Parser model.

• JADE XML Parser, which models the parser itself rather than the document.

  JADE XML Parser is an event-driven read-only API that reads an XML document serially and feeds the content to the application by a callback interface. The parser is represented by a JadeXMLParser object.

  The application creates a subclass of JadeXMLParser and implements the JadeXMLParser callback methods on the subclass. (For more details, see "JADE XML Parser Model", later in this chapter.)

  Although the JADE Parser model is fast and memory-efficient because it does not have to store the entire document in objects, JADE XML Parser applications can be harder to design and code because you normally need to develop your own data structures to hold the content from the document.

Both JADE XML Tree and JADE XML Parser models use the same underlying parsing engine, which checks the document to ensure that it is well-formed but it does not validate the document against a schema or document type definition.