XML - Parsers

XML parser is a software library or a package that provides interface for client applications to work with XML documents. It checks for proper format of the XML document and may also validate the XML documents. Modern day browsers have built-in XML parsers.

Following diagram shows how XML parser interacts with XML document −

The goal of a parser is to transform XML into a readable code.

To ease the process of parsing, some commercial products are available that facilitate the breakdown of XML document and yield more reliable results.

Some commonly used parsers are listed below −

• MSXML (Microsoft Core XML Services) − This is a standard set of XML tools from Microsoft that includes a parser.

• System.Xml.XmlDocument − This class is part of .NET library, which contains a number of different classes related to working with XML.

• Java built-in parser − The Java library has its own parser. The library is designed such that you can replace the built-in parser with an external implementation such as Xerces from Apache or Saxon.

• Saxon − Saxon offers tools for parsing, transforming, and querying XML.

• Xerces − Xerces is implemented in Java and is developed by the famous open source Apache Software Foundation.