- XML Reference Guide
- Overview
- What Is XML?
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- Table of Contents
- The Document Object Model
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- DOM and Java
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- Implementations
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- Using a Repeater
- Repeaters and XML
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- Documentation and Downloads
- DOM and C++
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- DOM and Perl
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- DOM and PHP
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- DOM Level 3
- DOM Level 3 Core
- DOM Level 3 Load and Save
- DOM Level 3 XPath
- DOM Level 3 Validation
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
- Books and e-Books
- Documentation and Implementations
- The Simple API for XML (SAX)
- Informit Articles and Sample Chapters
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- Official Documentation
- SAX and Java
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- SAX and .NET
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- SAX and Perl
- SAX and Perl Resources
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- Validation
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- Official Documentation
- Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
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- XML Schemas
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- RELAX NG
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- Schematron
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- Validation in Applications
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- Books and e-Books
- XSL Transformations (XSLT)
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- Official Documentation
- XSLT in Java
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- XSLT and RSS in .NET
- XSLT and RSS in .NET Resources
- XSL-FO
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- Books and e-Books
- Official Documentation
- XPath
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- XML Base
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- Official Documentation
- XHTML
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- XHTML 2.0
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- XUL
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- Online Resources
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- SQL Server and FOR XML
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- Documentation and Implementations
- Service Oriented Architecture
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- Creating a Perl Web Service Client
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- Creating the Movable Type Plug-in
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- Apache Axis2
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- Ajax
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- JSON
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- New Languages: XML in Use
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- Google Web Toolkit
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- The Semantic Web
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- Official Documentation
- OPML
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- Summary
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- JavaScript TimeTracker: JSON and PHP
- The Javascript Timetracker
- Refactoring to Javascript Objects
- Creating the Yahoo! Widget
- Web Mashup
- Google Maps
- Indeed Mashup
- Mashup Part 3: Putting It All Together
- Additional Resources
- Frequently Asked Questions About XML
- What's XML, and why should I use it?
- What's a well-formed document?
- What's the difference between XML and HTML?
- What's the difference between HTML and XHTML?
- Can I use XML in a browser?
- Should I use elements or attributes for my document?
- What's a namespace?
- Where can I get an XML parser?
- What's the difference between a well-formed document and a valid document?
- What's a validating parser?
- Should I use DOM or SAX for my application?
- How can I stop a SAX parser before it has parsed the entire document?
- 2005 Predictions
- 2006 Predictions
- Nick's Book Picks
Validating an XML file is normally a matter of creating a setting on the particular parser being used to read the XML document that makes it a validating parser, and, in most cases, creating functionality to deal with any errors that exist in the document.
For example, a Java application might parse the orders file in the previous example like so:
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder; import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory; import java.io.File; import org.w3c.dom.Document; public class ValidateFile { public static void main (String args[]) { File docFile = new File("orders.xml"); Document doc = null; try { DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance(); dbf.setValidating(true); DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder(); db.setErrorHandler(new ErrorProcessor()); doc = db.parse(docFile); //Work with the new document //... } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println("Problem parsing the file: "+e.getMessage()); } } }
First the application sets the parser to be validating. (In the case of the Java 2 SDK, for which this application is written, the DocumentBuilderFactory is set to create a validating parser, the DocumentBuilder.) The application then tells the parser which class should handle any errors. In this case, the ErrorHandler class is a SAX error handler, even though the parser is a DOM parser. (Remember, many DOM parsers actually use SAX behind the scenes.)
A complete SAX application might accomplish the same task like so:
import org.xml.sax.helpers.XMLReaderFactory; import org.xml.sax.XMLReader; import org.xml.sax.SAXException; import org.xml.sax.InputSource; import java.io.IOException; import org.xml.sax.XMLFilter; public class MainSaxApp { public static void main (String[] args){ try { String parserClass = "org.apache.crimson.parser.XMLReaderImpl"; XMLReader reader = XMLReaderFactory.createXMLReader(parserClass); reader.setContentHandler(new DataProcessor()); reader.setFeature("http://xml.org/sax/features/validation", true); reader.setErrorHandler(new ErrorProcessor()); InputSource file = new InputSource("orders.xml"); reader.parse(file); } catch (IOException ioe) { System.out.println("IO Exception: "+ioe.getMessage()); } catch (SAXException se) { System.out.println("SAX Exception: "+se.getMessage()); } } }
Different languages accomplish the same task different ways, but the concept is the same: establish a validating parser, parse the file, and deal with the errors.