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XML Utilities

This pages describes the XML utility API provided by the language.

See also: Built-in Classes, DomDocument class, DomNode class, SaxAttributes class, XmlReader class, XmlWriter class, SaxDocumentHandler class.

DOM and SAX standards

The DOM (Document Object Model) is a programming interface specification being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), that lets a programmer create and modify HTML pages and XML documents as full-fledged program objects. DOM is a full-fledged object-oriented, complex but complete API, providing methods to manipulate the full XML document as a whole. DOM is designed for small XML trees manipulation.

The SAX (Simple API for XML) is a programming interface for XML, simpler as DOM. SAX is event-driven, streamed-data based, and designed for large trees. 

The DOM and SAX APIs

The runtime system includes a set of built-in classes based on DOM and SAX.

The DOM API is composed of:

• The DomDocument class, that defines the interface to a DOM document. Instances of this class can be used to identify and manipulate an XML tree. DomNode object manipulation methods are provided by this class.
• The DomNode class, that defines the interface to an DOM node. Instances of this class can be used to identify and manipulate a branch of an XML tree. Child nodes and node attributes management methods are provided by this class.

The SAX API is composed of:

• The SaxAttributes class represents a set of element attributes. It is used with an XmlReader or an XmlWriter object.
• The XmlReader class, that is defined to read XML. The XML document processing is based on events.
• The XmlWriter class, that is defined to write XML. The XML document processing is based on events.
• The SaxDocumentHandler class, which provides an interface to implement a SAX filter using functions.

Controlling the user interface with DOM/SAX APIs

The runtime system represents the user interface of a program with a DOM tree. User interface elements can be manipulated with the built-in classes described in this section.

For more details about the user interface manipulation, see the Dynamic User Interface.