A stream buffer is a stream-based representation of an XML
info-set in Java. Stream buffers are designed to: provide
very efficient stream-based memory representations of XML
info-sets; and be created and processed using any Java-based
XML API.
Conceptually a stream buffer is similar to the representation
used in the Xerces deferred DOM implementation, with the crucial
difference that a stream buffer does not store hierarchical
information like parent and sibling information. The deferred
DOM implementation reduces memory usage when large XML documents
are parsed but only a subset of the document needs to be processed.
(Note that using deferred DOM will be more expensive than
non-deferred DOM in terms of memory and processing if all
the document is traversed.)
Stream buffers may be used as an efficient alternative to DOM where:
* most or all of an XML info-set will eventually get traversed; and/or
* targeted access to certain parts of an XML info-set are required
and need to be efficiently processed using stream-based APIs like
SAX or StAX.
