>is there a way to use a memory buffer rather than a file as my input source?
Assuming you mean a buffer that containx the XML text to be searched, and that you're working with Xalan-J: create a reader that pulls data from your buffer, then wrap a StreamSource around that. The sample programs that come with Xalan-J demonstrate doiing this for a stylesheet; the same solution should work for the XPath API. (Alternatively, of course, you can parse the text into a DOM tree or SAX stream yourself, then pass us a DOMSource or SAXSource.) ______________________________________ Joe Kesselman / IBM Research
