java - SAX vs XmlTextReader - SAX in C#

Question

I am attempting to read a large XML document and I wanted to do it in chunks vs XmlDocument's way of reading the entire file into memory. I know I can use XmlTextReader to do this but I was wondering if anyone has used SAX for .NET? I know Java developers swear by it and I was wondering if it is worth giving it a try and if so what are the benefits in using it. I am looking for specifics.

Answer 1

If you just want to get the job done quickly, the XmlTextReader exists for that purpose (in .NET).

If you want to learn a de facto standard (and available in may other programming languages) that is stable and which will force you to code very efficiently and elegantly, but which is also extremely flexible, then look into SAX. However, don't waste your time unless you're going to be creating highly esoteric XML parsers. Instead, look for parsers that next generation parsers (like XmlTextReader) for your particular platform.

SAX Resources
SAX was originally written for Java, and you can find the original open source project, which has been stable for several years, here: http://sax.sourceforge.net/

There is a C# port of the same project here (with HTML docs as part of the source download); it is also stable: http://saxdotnet.sourceforge.net/

If you do not like the C# implementation, you could always resort to referencing COM DLLs via COMInterop using MSXML3 or later: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms994343.aspx

Articles that come from the Java world but which probably illustrate the concepts you need to be successful with this approach (there may also be downloadable Java source code that could prove useful and may be easy enough to convert to C#):

• Output large XML documents, Part 1 (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-tipbigdoc.html)
• Output large XML documents, Part 2 (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-tipbigdoc2.html)
• Use a SAX filter to manipulate data (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-tipsaxfilter/)

It will be a cumbersome implementation. I have only used SAX back in my pre-.NET days, but it requires some pretty advanced coding techniques. At this point, it's just not worth the trouble.

Interesting Concept for a Hybrid Parser
This thread describes a hybrid parser that uses the .NET XmlTextReader to implement a parser that provides a combination of DOM and SAX benefits...
http://bytes.com/groups/net-xml/178403-xmltextreader-versus-dom