XOM API for Processing XML with Java

[Elliotte Harold <elharo AT metalab.unc.edu>]

Wolfgang Hoschek wrote:

> Anything that converts an external XML representation from/to XOM 
> requires efficient support for namespace iterations. Like the 
> nu.xom.Serializer or DOMConverter or SAXConverter, or the streaming 
> serializers, the bnux serializer or the STAX converters, or any number 
> of other things connecting to Axis AXIOM, XFire, JAXB, JixB, etc, etc.

No, I don't think it is. Needing namespaces *in-scope* is a very weird 
thing and purely relevant to XML and things that try to be XML but 
aren't. I don't think generic data binding frameworks and serialization 
into other frameworks actually need to inspect or preserve this 
information. SAXConverter/DOMConverter, OK, maybe. They need to do this, 
but those aren't what I think of as speed-critical operations 
(especially DOMConverter). They're there for convenience, not speed.

The part of XML that is potentially relevant (and not always then) when 
converting to something that's not XML is the namespace of each element 
and attribute, and this can be cleanly and efficiently managed without 
much effort. The problem only arises if you really want to preserve all 
namespaces in scope, including those declared as additional namespaces. 
I've yet to see a use-case that needs to iterate over those additional 
namespaces other than alternate representations of XML. Alternate 
representations of non-XML data models (JAXB, JibX, etc.) don';t need this.

I still think this is on the wrong side of 80/20.

--
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo AT metalab.unc.edu
XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim