XOM API for Processing XML with Java

[Wolfgang Hoschek <wolfgang.hoschek AT mac.com>]

XML does not specify an end-of-document marker. Instead, such framing  
issues are left to a higher level protocol (e.g. HTTP).

A generic XML parser has no knowledge of the higher level protocol in  
use, thus will parse until it hits end-of-stream (EOS). For example,  
HTTP/MIME knows where the end of a response occurs, so an InputStream  
containing the XML payload derived from a servlet will indicate EOS  
at the correct spot. If you're not using a protocol that has framing  
built-in, you'll have to roll your own. Here's a simple example:

msg := length payload
length := 4 byte integer (big endian)
payload := sequence of <length> bytes

For are more thorough discussion of framing issues, see [1] and [2].

[1] RFC 3117: On the Design of Application Protocols, http://www.rfc- 
editor.org/rfc/rfc3117.txt
[2] Stuart Cheshire and Mary Baker, "Consistent Overhead Byte  
Stuffing." IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, April 1999, http:// 
www.stuartcheshire.org/papers/COBSforToN.pdf

Wolfgang.

On Oct 20, 2006, at 11:47 AM, Altman, Alan wrote:

> I want to read an xml doc from a socket.
>
> I have a socket open and I am waiting to read input that is sent to  
> me.
>
> Forgetting about validating the doc, is there an easy way to know  
> when I
> have read a complete doc so that I can start parsing it?
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
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