XOM API for Processing XML with Java

[Wolfgang Hoschek <whoschek AT lbl.gov>]

Hi,

For my XML Schema validation taks, I need to use a nu.xom.Builder with 
custom features and properties set, such as:

parser.setFeature(
  "http://apache.org/xml/features/validation/schema";, true);
parser.setFeature(
   "http://apache.org/xml/features/validation/dynamic";, true);
parser.setFeature(
   "http://apache.org/xml/features/validation/schema-full-checking";, 
true);
parser.setProperty(
   "http://apache.org/xml/properties/schema/external-schemaLocation";,
   "http://dsd.lbl.gov/p2pio-1.0 
file:///home/g5/users/hoschek/devel/firebundle/firefish/src/schemas/p2pio.xsd"); 



Builder already supports this by taking a custom XMLReader in the 
constructor, but it is still cumbersome:

I still need to find a parser myself and hence duplicate the good and 
solid code within Builder (findParsers(), setupParser()), that normally 
takes care of this fragile step. This would be quite a bit easier if 
Builder had a method

        public XMLReader getXMLReader() {
                return this.parser;
        }

(or perhaps better named getParser()) so that I could get hold of the 
reader and then customize it afterwards, ala:

builder = new Builder(true);
builder.getXMLReader().setFeature(...);
builder.build(...)

Would you consider adding such a method?

As an aside, new Builder(true) does not seem to be able to validate XML 
schemas (xerces-2.3.0 here), as opposed to DTDs. A feature such as
parser.setFeature(
  "http://apache.org/xml/features/validation/schema";, true);
apparently must be set to make it do that.


Perhaps long term (and here I am not sure) it might make sense to 
provide another constructor to Builder that works "out-of-the-box" for 
XML Schema validation, whether a schema location is present in the XML 
doc or not, and optionally on external schema locations. In any case, 
just adding method getXMLReader() would help quite a bit.

Thanks,
Wolfgang.