Always try to use only the standard XML APIs when writing XML applications. This will keep your application shielded from changes in the underlying implementation of those standard APIs and also gives you more flexibility to change the implementation of the standard pieces without modifying your application code.

• Standard API
• Java API for XML Processing (JAXP)
• XML Parser Factories
• Document Object Model (DOM)
• Core
• Events
• HTML
• Ranges
• Traversal
• Simple API for XML (SAX)
• Core
• Helper Classes
• Extensions

If you need functionality that is not available in the standard APIs like DOM and SAX, then perhaps using the Xerces Native Interface (XNI) will provide the information to build the appropriate parsing tools for your application. For more detailed information regarding XNI, refer to the XNI Manual.

• Xerces Native Interface
• Core
• Parser Configuration
• Grammar Interfaces

The XML Schema API specification defines a set of interfaces for accessing and querying the post schema validation infoset (PSVI) defined in Contributions to the post-schema-validation infoset (Appendix C.2). These interfaces provide access to the XML Schema components, which follow as a consequence of validation and/or assessment and also provide a means for accessing the PSVI from a document instance.

Some of the interfaces in the XML Schema API reference interfaces from DOM Level 3 which are now in the org.apache.xerces.dom3 package. The API will be updated to use the official DOM Level 3 package when DOM becomes a W3C Recommendation.

• XML Schema API

Includes DOM Level 3 Working Draft APIs:

• Document Object Model Level 3 Core
• Document Object Model Level 3 Load and Save

These APIs are unstable and may change: org.apache.xerces.dom3

For maintainers and developers of the Xerces2 reference implementation, it's important to know the internal APIs used.

• Xerces2 Implementation

The Xerces2 package also contains other implementation classes. You can jump to the API for these classes via the following links:

• Other Classes