If you have already handled XML documents using the ABL support for DOM, then you know that an XML document in the ABL environment can be represented by an X-document object. An XML element can be represented by an X-noderef object. You interact with XML documents and XML elements using the attributes and methods of these ABL objects.

Similarly, the ABL SAX interface provides you with three ABL objects:

The ABL SAX-reader lets you do the following:

  • Provide callback procedures or methods for the SAX API to automatically invoke as it parses a document
  • Enable or disable DTD and XML Schema validation and namespace processing
  • Parse an XML document with one call or multiple calls
  • Monitor the state of a parse
  • Detect and handle errors

The ABL SAX-attributes object is automatically created and destroyed by the ABL Virtual machine (AVM) as needed at parse time to handle the attributes read for a single document element.

You can also create your own SAX-attributes objects to save the contents of automatically created SAX-attributes objects or, perhaps, to assemble a collection of XML attributes that you plan to apply to elements as you create a new XML document.