SAX2: Changes

Changes from SAX 2.0 to SAX 2.0 r2 prerelease

(See the ChangeLog in the distribution for more details.)

• Added simple test program src/SAXTest.java
• Synchronized static methods in XMLReaderFactory for thread safety.
• Fixed bug in ParserAdapter that reported an incorrect error when an attribute using a Namespace prefix appeared before the Namespace declaration.
• Fixed bugs in AttributesImpl that caused infinite loops or prevented removing attributes.
• Specified that InputSource.getSystemId should return null (not an empty string) when no system ID is available.
• Modified DefaultHandler.resolveEntity to throw IOException, as in the interface specification.
• Added default constructors to SAXException, SAXNotRecognizedException, and SAXNotSupportedException.

Changes from SAX 2.0prerelease to SAX 2.0

• Documented the fact that parse() and event handlers are synchronous.
• Documented the fact that xml: prefix never has start/endPrefixMapping events.

Changes from SAX 2.0beta2 to SAX 2.0prerelease

(See the ChangeLog included in the distribution for more detailed information.)

• If the org.xml.sax.driver property is not specified but the SAX org.xml.sax.parser property is specified, XMLReaderFactory.createXMLReader() will attempt to create an XML1 Parser and then wrap it in a ParserAdapter.
• DefaultHandler now throws a SAXException for its notationDecl and unparsedEntityDecl methods, so that they can be subclassed properly.
• Bug fixed in AttributesImpl; last attribute can now be removed.
• Added setAttributes method AttributesImpl to simplify reusing an object.
• SAXParseException now allows a null locator argument in its constructors.
• Specified that the ContentHandler skippedEntity method will have an entity name of "[dtd]" for the external DTD subset.
• Specified that the ContentHandler processingInstruction method will exclude whitespace between the target and data.
• In NamespaceSupport, setting the "" prefix to "" removes any default mapping, and changed getPrefix, getPrefixes so that they will not return the default prefix.
• In Attributes, renamed getRawName to getQName. Likewise, in AttributesImpl, renamed setRawName to setQName.
• Removed the org.xml.sax.ext package into a separate distribution, SAX2-ext. The DeclHandler and LexicalHandler classes are no longer part of the core SAX2 distribution.
• Added docs/quick-start.html
• Modified XMLReaderAdapter, ParserAdapter, and XMLFilterImpl so that parse(String) actually invokes parse(InputSource): this way, only parse(InputSource) needs to be overridden in subclasses.
• Added getPrefix(String) and getPrefixes(String) methods to NamespaceSupport to look up currently-mapped prefixes.

Changes from SAX 2.0beta to SAX 2.0beta2

• Corrected "raw-names" to "namespace-prefixes" throughout.
• Removed a JDK 1.2 dependency in org.xml.sax.helpers.NamespaceSupport.
• Fixed org.xml.sax.helpers.ParserAdapter so that the object can be reused after a previous parse has thrown an exception.
• Added org.xml.sax.helpers.XMLReaderFactory.
• Documented limitations of start/endEntity in org.xml.sax.ext.LexicalHandler, and added documentation that LexicalHandler applies to the whole document and that all events must appear between start/endDocument (including start/endDTD).
• org.xml.sax.helpers.ParserAdapter and org.xml.sax.helpers.XMLReaderAdapter now have a default constructors that use the "org.xml.sax.parser" and "org.xml.sax.driver" properties to locate the embedded SAX1 and SAX2 drivers respectively.

Changes from SAX 1.0 to SAX 2.0beta

The following interfaces and classes have been deprecated, and will be removed from a future version of SAX; they should be used only for interaction with SAX1 drivers or applications:

• org.xml.sax.Parser
• org.xml.sax.DocumentHandler
• org.xml.sax.AttributeList
• org.xml.sax.HandlerBase
• org.xml.sax.helpers.ParserFactory
• org.xml.sax.helpers.AttributeListImpl

The following interfaces and classes have been added to SAX2:

• org.xml.sax.XMLReader (replaces Parser)
• org.xml.sax.XMLFilter
• org.xml.sax.ContentHandler (replaces DocumentHandler)
• org.xml.sax.Attributes (replaces AttributeList)
• org.xml.sax.SAXNotSupportedException
• org.xml.sax.SAXNotRecognizedException
• org.xml.sax.helpers.AttributesImpl (replaces AttributeListImpl)
• org.xml.sax.helpers.NamespaceSupport
• org.xml.sax.helpers.XMLFilterImpl
• org.xml.sax.helpers.ParserAdapter
• org.xml.sax.helpers.XMLReaderAdapter
• org.xml.sax.helpers.DefaultHandler (replaces HandlerBase)
• org.xml.sax.ext.LexicalHandler (since removed)
• org.xml.sax.ext.DeclHandler (since removed)

SAX2 contains complete Namespace support, which is available by default from any XMLReader. An XML reader can also optionally supply raw XML 1.0 names. See SAX2: Namespaces for more details.

An XML reader is fully configurable: it is possible to attempt to query or change the current value of any feature or property. Features and properties are identified by fully-qualified URIs, and parties are free to invent their own names for new extensions. See SAX2: Features and Properties for more details.

The ContentHandler and Attributes interfaces are similar to the deprecated DocumentHandler and AttributeList interfaces, but they add support for Namespace-related information. ContentHandler also adds a callback for skipped entities, and Attributes adds the ability to look up an attribute's index by name.

The ParserAdapter class makes a SAX1 Parser behave as a SAX2 XMLReader. The XMLReaderAdapter class makes a SAX2 XML reader behave as a SAX1 parser. These two classes should ease the transition from SAX1 to SAX2 by allowing SAX1 drivers and clients to co-exist with SAX2 drivers and clients in the same application.