Is MSXML pure Java?

[Chris Lovett]

> I just installed it to check it out and I noticed that it installs
> a DLL. It also doesn't come in a standard jar or zip file,
> but uses an installer which appends to the Microsoft Java VM
> classes.zip file in \winnt\java\classes. In order words, it 
> seems too close and comfy with the Microsoft VM which scares me
> into thinking that perhaps it uses one of MS's horible extensions
> to tie it to IE/Windows.
> 
> Is it non-pure? Or is the DLL stuff just some kind of ActiveX/DSO
> bridge junk?
> 
[Chris Lovett]  The DLL that is an optimization that only works under
Windows to improve the speed of Java IO by a large amount (I think it is a
factor of 4 or something).  This will simply not load on any other platform
and become a no-op.  To be sure you can remove the XMLStream classes all
together.  The rest of the parser is very much standard plain vanilla Java,
although it does use some JDK 1.1 features.  There is also a switch in their
that looks for JDK 1.1, so if you have a newer JDK than 1.1 you will need to
disable that test and simply set the jdk11 member variable to "true".

> The docs aren't JavaDoced either :(, but it does appear to
> have its own Object Model which seems suspiciously like
> DOM (which is understandable since MS is one of the submitters),
> but different enough to be confusing.  Any word whether 
> MSXML will eventually support DOM native?
> 
[Chris Lovett]  Yes, the plan is to support DOM.  The Java parser was
written last year when the DOM was still in its infancy.
So far the DOM is still a moving target.  


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