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At 06:46 -0700 2005-10-10, Anil Philip wrote:
>Hello,
>I am using SAX/Java to parse through a tree of nodes
>looking for a particular subtree. Each node has a
>nodeId attribute (an int).
>When I find the subtree, I want to parse it into
>nodes. However it would be a waste to parse the rest
>of the xml file; how do I skip parsing the rest?
>Parsing the rest of the file would be simply
>unnecessary.
>(I assume SAX is pre-order tree traversal).
>thanks,
>Anil
Skipping the part *after* the subtree you want is easy: just shut
down the parser.
Skipping the part *before* may be hard. If your tree is headed by
<foo nodeID='65536'>...
*and* if you're certain that nothing like "nodeID=" won't show up in
content, or in a comment or PI, etc. then you can just scan for it.
Once you find it, you have to tell SAX to start at that certain
offset in a file. You might try creating your own EntityResolver, and
when it's asked to supply the appropriate entity, you open the file
and seek it to the right place before handing it to Sax in the first
place.
Please note that there are quite a few things that could mess up a
simple scan. For example:
* The nodeID could show up in a comment, PI, content, another
attribute, etc.
* The attribute value could use the other kind of quotes and you'd miss it.
* If there are entities around, your scanner would have to handle them, too.
But if you can ensure that none of the tricky cases come up,
something like this should work.
Steve
--
Luthien Consulting: Real solutions to hard information management problems
Specializing in information design, XML, schemas, XSLT, and
project design/review/repair
Steven J. DeRose, Ph.D., sderose@acm.org
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