A communiqué from Tinny Ng (XML Parsers Development, IBM Toronto Laboratory) announces the release of the Apache Xerces-C++ XML parser version 1.6.0, including full support for the W3C XML Schema Recommendation. Xerces-C++ is "a validating XML parser written in a portable subset of C++; Xerces-C++ makes it easy to give your application the ability to read and write XML data. A shared library is provided for parsing, generating, manipulating, and validating XML documents. The parser features: (1) Conformance to the XML Specification 1.0; (2) Tracking of latest DOM [Level 1.0], DOM [Level 2.0], SAX/SAX2, Namespace, and XML Schema specifications; (3) Source code, samples, and documentation; (4) Programmatic generation and validation of XML; (5) Pluggable catalogs, validators and encodings; (6) High performance; (7) Customizable error handling." The latest version of Xerces-C++ includes a port to FreeBSD and support for specifying a schema location through a method call. Source code and binaries are available for several platforms.

Xerces-C++ V1.6.0 web site description:

The parser provides high performance, modularity, and scalability. Source code, samples and API documentation are provided with the parser. For portability, care has been taken to make minimal use of templates, no RTTI, no C++ namespaces and minimal use of #ifdefs.

Xerces has rich generating and validating capabilities. The parser is used for: Building XML-savvy Web servers Building next generation of vertical applications that use XML as their data format On-the-fly validation for creating XML editors Ensuring the integrity of e-business data expressed in XML Building truly internationalized XML applications.

The distribution includes: (1) Xerces-C++ V1.6.0 Source Package for Unix-es; (2) Xerces-C++ V1.6.0 Source Package for Windows; (3) Xerces-C++ V1.6.0 Binary Package for AIX; (4) Xerces-C++ V1.6.0 Binary Package for HP; (5) Xerces-C++ V1.6.0 Binary Package for Solaris; (6) Xerces-C++ V1.6.0 Binary Package for Linux; (7) Xerces-C++ V1.6.0 Binary Package for Windows.