Java API for XML processing

The Java platform (from version 5.0) offers powerful XML processing features, including:

org.xml.sax

This package defines the de facto standard Simple API for XML (SAX). This is an API for parsing XML documents that exploits the event-based model for XML processing.

org.w3c.dom

This package defines the W3C standard Document Object Model (DOM). This is an API for parsing XML documents that exploits the tree-based model for XML processing.

javax.xml.parsers

This package provides high-level interfaces for instantiating SAX and DOM parsers for parsing and, optionally, validating XML documents against DTD.

javax.xml.validation

This package provides support for validation of XML documents against W3C XML Schema.

javax.xml.transform

This package supports the evaluation of XSLT programs for transforming XML documents.

javax.xml.xpath

This package supports the evaluation of XPath expressions for selecting nodes from XML documents.

javax.xml.xquery

This package supports the evaluation of XQuery expressions for querying XML documents. This package in under development as Java Specification Requests 225.

Notice that SAX and DOM packages are endorsed standards with respect to Java. This means that they are part of the Java platform by are not defined by Sun, which is why they have the org prefix.