SAX Parser to read XML file in Java

SAX Parser Introduction

Simple API for XML (SAX) is an event driven, serial access mechanism for accessing XML documents. SAX is the fastest and least memory intensive mechanism for dealing with XML documents. An application that uses SAX provides an instance of handler class to the parser. When the parser detects XML constructs, it calls the methods of the handler class, passing them information about the construct that was detected. The most commonly used handler classes are DocumentHandler which is called when XML constructs are recognized, and ErrorHandler which is called when an error occurs.

Simple Java program implementation of SAX parser

This is the input data file. We are interested in parsing the TITLE and YEAR elements from this XML file.

<CATALOG>
 <CD>
  <TITLE>Empire Burlesque</TITLE>
  <ARTIST>Bob Dylan</ARTIST>
  <COUNTRY>USA</COUNTRY>
  <COMPANY>Columbia</COMPANY>
  <PRICE>10.90</PRICE>
  <YEAR>1985</YEAR>
 </CD>
 <CD>
  <TITLE>Hide your heart</TITLE>
  <ARTIST>Bonnie Tyler</ARTIST>
  <COUNTRY>UK</COUNTRY>
  <COMPANY>CBS Records</COMPANY>
  <PRICE>9.90</PRICE>
  <YEAR>1988</YEAR>
 </CD>
 <CD>
  <TITLE>Greatest Hits</TITLE>
  <ARTIST>Dolly Parton</ARTIST>
  <COUNTRY>USA</COUNTRY>
  <COMPANY>RCA</COMPANY>
  <PRICE>9.90</PRICE>
  <YEAR>1982</YEAR>
 </CD>
 <CD>
  <TITLE>Still got the blues</TITLE>
  <ARTIST>Gary Moore</ARTIST>
  <COUNTRY>UK</COUNTRY>
  <COMPANY>Virgin records</COMPANY>
  <PRICE>10.20</PRICE>
  <YEAR>1990</YEAR>
 </CD>
</CATALOG>

This is the main application program. Here we setup the SAX parser object and create the handler object. Then we read the input XML file initiate the parsing.

package com.sourcetricks.MySaxParser;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;

import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
import javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser;
import javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory;

import org.xml.sax.SAXException;

public class MySaxParser {

 public static void main(String[] args) {

  try {
   // Setup the parser
   SAXParserFactory parserFactory = SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
   SAXParser parser = parserFactory.newSAXParser();
   
   // Setup the handler
   MyEchoHandler handler = new MyEchoHandler();
   
   // Read the XML file
   File inputFile = new File("resources/input-data.xml");
   InputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(inputFile);
   
   // Parse the XML file using the handler
   parser.parse(inputStream, handler);
  } catch (ParserConfigurationException | SAXException | IOException e) {
   e.printStackTrace();
  } 
 }
}

This is an implementation of the DefaultHandler. Here we implement the document events, element events and character events to read the XML element values.

package com.sourcetricks.MySaxParser;

import org.xml.sax.Attributes;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
import org.xml.sax.helpers.DefaultHandler;

public class MyEchoHandler extends DefaultHandler {

 private StringBuffer textBuffer = null;
 private boolean elementOfInterest = false;
 
 // Document events
 public void startDocument() throws SAXException { 
  System.out.println("startDocument");
 }

 public void endDocument() throws SAXException {
  System.out.println("endDocument");
 }

 // Element events
 public void startElement(String namespaceURI,
   String sName, String qName,
   Attributes attrs) throws SAXException { 
  if ( qName.equalsIgnoreCase("TITLE") || qName.equalsIgnoreCase("YEAR") ) {
   elementOfInterest = true;
  }
  else {
   elementOfInterest = false;
  }
 }

 public void endElement(String namespaceURI,
   String sName, String qName ) throws SAXException {
  if ( textBuffer == null )
   return;
  
  System.out.println(qName + " = " + textBuffer);
  textBuffer = null;
  elementOfInterest = false;
 }

 // Character events
 public void characters(char buf[], int offset, 
   int len) throws SAXException {
  if ( ! elementOfInterest )
   return;
  
  // Accumulate the characters delivered by the parser in the buffer
  String str = new String(buf, offset, len);
  if ( textBuffer == null ) {
   textBuffer = new StringBuffer(str);
  }
  else {
   textBuffer.append(str);
  }
 }
}

This is output.

startDocument
TITLE = Empire Burlesque
YEAR = 1985
TITLE = Hide your heart
YEAR = 1988
TITLE = Greatest Hits
YEAR = 1982
TITLE = Still got the blues
YEAR = 1990
endDocument