From owner-xml-dev@ic.ac.uk Mon Jan 12 09:00:28 1998 Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 09:52:10 -0500 From: David Megginson <ak117@freenet.carleton.ca> Subject: Announcement: SAX 1998-01-12 Draft
I am happy to announce the first draft of SAX, the Simple API for XML, together with a Java reference implementation and drivers for the major Java-based XML parsers.
SAX is a simple, common, event-based API for XML parsers written in object-oriented languages like Java, C++, or Perl5 (the reference implementation is in Java). SAX is similar in philosophy to JavaSoft's JDBC -- it allows you to write an application once, then plug in any XML parser that has a SAX driver, just as the JDBC allows you to plug in any SQL database that has a JDBC driver. The SAX API was developed collaboratively during a month of discussion on the XML-DEV mailing list.
As an event-based interface, SAX is complementary to the proposed (tree-based) Document Object Model interface; in fact, it should be possible to implement a basic DOM interface on top of SAX, or a basic SAX interface on top of DOM. Event-based interfaces provide very simple, low-level access to parsing events, without straining system resources.
For SAX documentation, a draft spec, a reference implementation of the SAX interfaces in Java, SAX front-end drivers for the major Java XML parsers (NXP, Lark, MSXML, and Ælfred), and a sample SAX application, please see:
http://www.microstar.com/XML/SAX/
I would like people to play with this for a month or two, during which time I'll collect suggestions and bug reports; after that, with luck, we can come up with a final draft. I may continue to work on the SAX drivers during that time, but I want to leave the rest alone for a while.
All the best,
David
--
David Megginson ak117@freenet.carleton.ca
Microstar Software Ltd. dmeggins@microstar.com
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/dmeggins/
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