xmlstreambuffer

XML Stream Buffer

A stream buffer is a stream-based representation of an XML info-set in Java. Stream buffers are designed to: provide very efficient stream-based memory representations of XML info-sets; and be created and processed using any Java-based XML API. Conceptually a stream buffer is similar to the representation used in the Xerces deferred DOM implementation, with the crucial difference that a stream buffer does not store hierarchical information like parent and sibling information. The deferred DOM implementation reduces memory usage when large XML documents are parsed but only a subset of the document needs to be processed. (Note that using deferred DOM will be more expensive than non-deferred DOM in terms of memory and processing if all the document is traversed.) Stream buffers may be used as an efficient alternative to DOM where: * most or all of an XML info-set will eventually get traversed; and/or * targeted access to certain parts of an XML info-set are required and need to be efficiently processed using stream-based APIs like SAX or StAX.