Difference Between DOM and SAX parser in java

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Difference Between DOM and SAX parser in javaDifference Between DOM and SAX parser in Java. Key Difference of DOM parser and SAX parser. DOM: Document Object Model vs SAX: Simple API for XML parser.

1. Overview of DOM and SAX parser in Java

The objective of DOM (Document Object Model) parser and SAX (Simple API for XML) parser are same but implementation are different. Both the parser work in different way internally, but intent of both are same. Internal implementation of DOM Vs SAX are different. It means, with same intent philosophy of the implementation are different.
In order to understand the difference between DOM and SAX, you have to understand each one of the parsers. For this you can visit DOM Parser: how to read XML in JAVA.

2. Key Difference of DOM and SAX

You should know the key differences about DOM and SAX Parser.

  • DOM stands for Document Object Model while SAX stands for Simple API for XML parsing.
  • DOM parser load full XML file in-memory and creates a tree representation of XML document, while SAX is an event based XML parser and doesn’t load whole XML document into memory.
  • If you know you have sufficient amount of memory in your server you can choose DOM as this is faster because load entire XML in-memory and works as tree structure which is faster to access.
  • As a thumb rule, for small and medium sized XML documents, DOM is much faster than SAX because of in memory agnostic.
  • As a thumb rule, for larger XML and for frequent parsing, SAX XML parser is better because it consume less memory.

3. DOM Vs SAX Parser

DOM (Document Object Model) SAX (Simple API for XML) Parser
AbbreviationDOM stands for Document Object Model, SAX stands for Simple API for XML Parsing
typeLoad entire memory and keep in tree structure event based parse
size of Documentgood for smaller size good to choose for larger size of file.
LoadLoad entire document in memorydoes not load entire document.
suitablebetter suitable for smaller and efficient memorySAX is suitable for larger XML doc

4. Related Posts of DOM and SAX Parser

In order to understand the difference between DOM and SAX, you have to understand each one of the parsers. For this you can visit.

5. Reference

You can visit Java Site

I hope you enjoyed this post about DOM and SAX parser in java. You can visit Core Java tutorial for more example blog post.
Your comments are welcome. Happy Learning 🙂


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