kXML 2 Documentation

kXML 2 implements the XmlPull API. Please find general information about XmlPull parsers including the interface documentation at xmlpull.org.

Naveen Balani has written a nice introduction to kxml 2 for IBM Developer Works.

For kXML specific classes, in particular for WBXML, please refer to the kXML API Documentation:

Special Features

kXML has two "special" features that are intended to simplify developers' life in constrained environments:

  • Support for WBXML (WAP binary encoded XML): Allows to parse WAP or Wireless Village content
  • A robust "relaxed" mode for parsing HTML or SGML files (that are not well-formed XML documents) in order to avoid the need of two separate parsers in mobile phones.

Recommended Calling Conventions

When handing an XMLpull parser to subroutines, it is recommended that the current position is on a start tag (allowing the subroutine to analyze the attributes). The post condition should usually be that the current position is the matching end tag.

Parsing Element-Only and Text-Only Content

General XML content can be parsed with the XML pull API using a loop advanving to the next event and a switch statement that depends on the event type. However, when using XML for data transfer (in contrast to text documents), most XML elements contain either only text or only other elements (possibly with further sub-elements). For those common cases, the parsing process can be simplified significantly by using the XmlPull API methods nextTag and nextText. Additionally, the method require() may optionally be used to assert a certain parser state. The following sample illustrates both situations and methods. The outer element elements has element-only content; the contained text-elements have text-only content:

<elements>
  <text>text1</text>
  <text>text2</text>
</elements>

Parsing Code

parser.nextTag();
parser.require(XmlPullParser.START_TAG, null, "elements");

while(parser.nextTag() == XmlPullParser.START_TAG) {
  parser.require(XmlPullParser.START_TAG, null, "text");

   // handle element content
   System.out.println("text content: "+ parser.nextText());

  parser.require(XmlPullParser.END_TAG, null, "text");
}

parser.require(XmlPullParser.END_TAG, null, "elements");

nextTag() advances to the next start or end tag, skipping insignificant events such as white space, comments and PIs. nextText() requires that the current position is a start tag. It returns the text content of the corresponding element. The post condition is that the current position is an end tag. Please note that the calls require() are optional assertions, they may be left out completely.

Articles about kXML 1 and 2

2003-09-01 New article about kXML 2 written by Naveen Balani published at IBM Developer Works
2003-04-04 New article about kXML 1 written by Robert Cadenaat published at DevX
2002-03-25 New article about kXML and WBXML comprssion written by Eric Giguere available at the SUN developer connection
2002-03-07 New artikle about kXML 1 written by Jonathan Knudsen available at the SUN developer connection