I thought the regexp suggestion was great! In an earlier question, it didn't even occur to me that use regexp, I couldn't think of an alternative. The response is a simple XML document, so regexp would be a simple and fast alternative. I have always done it the hard way. I wrote a simple XML parser and decided it was easier to let someone else do it ;-).
I intended to use a DOM/JDOM implementation to parse a really complex document. The more I looked at SAX, the "simpler" it became. Then I tried it on some simpler documents and figured out it is the easiest way to go. I did some timings and am getting anywhere from 8/10-90 ms to parse a document, depending on the complexity. All it really does is walk down an array, notifying you when the tags begin and end, so it has some bookkeeping overhead. I have found that DOM/JDOM has a certain amount of mental overhead. I was walking the tree looking for certain values, almost like a state transistion. And along the way I had to check every child to make sure it wasn't null. Now I only use DOM type trees for data that has to be modified. Mark Dawid Weiss wrote: > MJS> If you look at how the SAX parser works, it takes the "document" > MJS> and steps through it like an array. > > Oh, I know how SAX works, but I'd be curious how the speed > of even the fastest SAX engines compare to a precompiled regular > expression. It's a vain discussion though, of course I admit SAX is both > nicer and less error prone than a regular expression way. I just mentioned > the regexp to satisfy people's natural curiosity on HOW THINGS CAN BE > DONE. You know what I mean? :) > > Dawid
