Module java.xml

Interface XMLStreamReader

All Superinterfaces:
XMLStreamConstants
All Known Implementing Classes:
StreamReaderDelegate

public interface XMLStreamReader extends XMLStreamConstants
The XMLStreamReader interface allows forward, read-only access to XML. It is designed to be the lowest level and most efficient way to read XML data.

The XMLStreamReader is designed to iterate over XML using next() and hasNext(). The data can be accessed using methods such as getEventType(), getNamespaceURI(), getLocalName() and getText();

An XMLStreamReader instance is created with an initial event type START_DOCUMENT. At any moment in time, it has a current event that the methods of the interface access and may load the next event through the next() method. The current event type can be determined by getEventType(), and the next returned by the next() method.

Parsing events are defined as the XML Declaration, a DTD, start tag, character data, white space, end tag, comment, or processing instruction. An attribute or namespace event may be encountered at the root level of a document as the result of a query operation.

For XML 1.0 compliance an XML processor must pass the identifiers of declared unparsed entities, notation declarations and their associated identifiers to the application. This information is provided through the property API on this interface. The following two properties allow access to this information: javax.xml.stream.notations and javax.xml.stream.entities. When the current event is a DTD the following call will return a list of Notations List l = (List) getProperty("javax.xml.stream.notations"); The following call will return a list of entity declarations: List l = (List) getProperty("javax.xml.stream.entities"); These properties can only be accessed during a DTD event and are defined to return null if the information is not available.

The following table describes which methods are valid in what state. If a method is called in an invalid state the method will throw a java.lang.IllegalStateException.

Valid methods for each state
Event Type Valid Methods
All States getProperty(), hasNext(), require(), close(), getNamespaceURI(), isStartElement(), isEndElement(), isCharacters(), isWhiteSpace(), getNamespaceContext(), getEventType(), getLocation(), hasText(), hasName()
START_ELEMENT next(), getName(), getLocalName(), hasName(), getPrefix(), getAttributeXXX(), isAttributeSpecified(), getNamespaceXXX(), getElementText(), nextTag()
ATTRIBUTE next(), nextTag() getAttributeXXX(), isAttributeSpecified(),
NAMESPACE next(), nextTag() getNamespaceXXX()
END_ELEMENT next(), getName(), getLocalName(), hasName(), getPrefix(), getNamespaceXXX(), nextTag()
CHARACTERS next(), getTextXXX(), nextTag()
CDATA next(), getTextXXX(), nextTag()
COMMENT next(), getTextXXX(), nextTag()
SPACE next(), getTextXXX(), nextTag()
START_DOCUMENT next(), getEncoding(), getVersion(), isStandalone(), standaloneSet(), getCharacterEncodingScheme(), nextTag()
END_DOCUMENT close()
PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION next(), getPITarget(), getPIData(), nextTag()
ENTITY_REFERENCE next(), getLocalName(), getText(), nextTag()
DTD next(), getText(), nextTag()
Since:
1.6
See Also: