Newbie Question

[Tomchi Tang]

Hi,
I wanted to ask a very basic question. I have a java object and i want to serialize it as an xml file. How should i do it
a) Create a new document using DOM and then serialize it using XSLT
b) Create the xml file by simply writing data (along with the tags) to a file.
Pls. suggest.

[Lasse Koskela]

a) Create a new document using DOM and then serialize it using XSLT
b) Create the xml file by simply writing data (along with the tags) to a file.

Following the simplest thing that could possibly work principle, I'd say b) is a better option. Especially when I don't quite see why you would need to use XSLT for serializing a DOM tree into disk as XML...?

[Karthik Guru]

use XSLT for serializing a DOM tree into disk as XML...?

With JAXP 1.1, this was the only way to serialize XML documents I guess.
Not sure if JAXP1.2 has added a standard way of serializing XML documents though.
On a side note I wonder if JAXP has been a huge success and if people have been doing XML processing on top of JAXP :roll:
I beleive there are always situations when we are better off using processor specific features. Can anybody share their views?

[Lasse Koskela]

With JAXP 1.1, this was the only way to serialize XML documents I guess.

Ok. I think you guys are talking about

Document doc = ...
OutputStream stream = new FileOutputStream("output.xml");
TransformerFactory tf = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
Transformer tran = tf.newTransformer();
Source src = new DOMSource(doc);
Result res = new StreamResult(stream);
tran.transform(src, res);

Right?
I didn't consider that as being "XSLT" (which I associate to "having an .xsl file")...

[Karthik Guru]

Yes, i meant identity transformation only.

[Tomchi Tang]

Thanks for your reply. Now i am convinced that DOM is a better option. On a little bit of research, I found there is another option available - JDom. What do you guys think about it - JDOM or DOM + XSLT.

[Lasse Koskela]

I would probably stick to "DOM + XSLT" over JDom just to avoid adding yet-another third party library into the project but instead use a portable, standard piece of code.