Interface for reading an XML document using callbacks.
This module, both source code and documentation, is in the
Public Domain, and comes with NO WARRANTY.
See http://www.saxproject.org
for further information.
Note: despite its name, this interface does
not extend the standard Java Reader
interface, because reading XML is a fundamentally different activity
than reading character data.
XMLReader is the interface that an XML parser's SAX2 driver must
implement. This interface allows an application to set and
query features and properties in the parser, to register
event handlers for document processing, and to initiate
a document parse.
All SAX interfaces are assumed to be synchronous: the
parse methods must not return until parsing
is complete, and readers must wait for an event-handler callback
to return before reporting the next event.
This interface replaces the (now deprecated) SAX 1.0 Parser interface. The XMLReader interface
contains two important enhancements over the old Parser
interface (as well as some minor ones):
it adds a standard way to query and set features and
properties; and
it adds Namespace support, which is required for many
higher-level XML standards.
There are adapters available to convert a SAX1 Parser to
a SAX2 XMLReader and vice-versa.
The feature name is any fully-qualified URI. It is
possible for an XMLReader to recognize a feature name but
temporarily be unable to return its value.
Some feature values may be available only in specific
contexts, such as before, during, or after a parse.
Also, some feature values may not be programmatically accessible.
(In the case of an adapter for SAX1 Parser, there is no
implementation-independent way to expose whether the underlying
parser is performing validation, expanding external entities,
and so forth.)
All XMLReaders are required to recognize the
http://xml.org/sax/features/namespaces and the
http://xml.org/sax/features/namespace-prefixes feature names.
Typical usage is something like this:
XMLReader r = new MySAXDriver();
// try to activate validation
try {
r.setFeature("http://xml.org/sax/features/validation", true);
} catch (SAXException e) {
System.err.println("Cannot activate validation.");
}
// register event handlers
r.setContentHandler(new MyContentHandler());
r.setErrorHandler(new MyErrorHandler());
// parse the first document
try {
r.parse("http://www.foo.com/mydoc.xml");
} catch (IOException e) {
System.err.println("I/O exception reading XML document");
} catch (SAXException e) {
System.err.println("XML exception reading document.");
}
Implementors are free (and encouraged) to invent their own features,
using names built on their own URIs.
Parameters:
name - The feature name, which is a fully-qualified URI.
The feature name is any fully-qualified URI. It is
possible for an XMLReader to expose a feature value but
to be unable to change the current value.
Some feature values may be immutable or mutable only
in specific contexts, such as before, during, or after
a parse.
All XMLReaders are required to support setting
http://xml.org/sax/features/namespaces to true and
http://xml.org/sax/features/namespace-prefixes to false.
Parameters:
name - The feature name, which is a fully-qualified URI.
value - The requested value of the feature (true or false).
The property name is any fully-qualified URI. It is
possible for an XMLReader to recognize a property name but
temporarily be unable to return its value.
Some property values may be available only in specific
contexts, such as before, during, or after a parse.
XMLReaders are not required to recognize any specific
property names, though an initial core set is documented for
SAX2.
Implementors are free (and encouraged) to invent their own properties,
using names built on their own URIs.
Parameters:
name - The property name, which is a fully-qualified URI.
The property name is any fully-qualified URI. It is
possible for an XMLReader to recognize a property name but
to be unable to change the current value.
Some property values may be immutable or mutable only
in specific contexts, such as before, during, or after
a parse.
XMLReaders are not required to recognize setting
any specific property names, though a core set is defined by
SAX2.
This method is also the standard mechanism for setting
extended handlers.
Parameters:
name - The property name, which is a fully-qualified URI.
Allow an application to register an error event handler.
If the application does not register an error handler, all
error events reported by the SAX parser will be silently
ignored; however, normal processing may not continue. It is
highly recommended that all SAX applications implement an
error handler to avoid unexpected bugs.
Applications may register a new or different handler in the
middle of a parse, and the SAX parser must begin using the new
handler immediately.
The application can use this method to instruct the XML
reader to begin parsing an XML document from any valid input
source (a character stream, a byte stream, or a URI).
Applications may not invoke this method while a parse is in
progress (they should create a new XMLReader instead for each
nested XML document). Once a parse is complete, an
application may reuse the same XMLReader object, possibly with a
different input source.
Configuration of the XMLReader object (such as handler bindings and
values established for feature flags and properties) is unchanged
by completion of a parse, unless the definition of that aspect of
the configuration explicitly specifies other behavior.
(For example, feature flags or properties exposing
characteristics of the document being parsed.)
During the parse, the XMLReader will provide information
about the XML document through the registered event
handlers.
This method is synchronous: it will not return until parsing
has ended. If a client application wants to terminate
parsing early, it should throw an exception.
Parameters:
input - The input source for the top-level of the
XML document.
Throws:
SAXException - Any SAX exception, possibly
wrapping another exception.
IOException - An IO exception from the parser,
possibly from a byte stream or character stream
supplied by the application.
Submit a bug or feature For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java SE Developer Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.