StAX

Streaming API for XML (StAX) is an application programming interface (API) to read and write XML documents, originating from the Java programming language community.

Traditionally, XML APIs are either: DOM based - the entire document is read into memory as a tree structure for random access by the calling application event based - the application registers to receive events as entities are encountered within the source document. Both have advantages: DOM, for example, allows for random access to the document, and event driven algorithm like SAX has a small memory footprint and is typically much faster.