This class is a factory for SAXParser objects. Obtain a SAXParserFactory by calling the newInstance( ) method which instantiates the default SAXParserFactory subclass provided with your Java implementation, or instantiates some other SAXParserFactory that has been "plugged in".

Once you have a SAXParserFactory object, you can use setValidating( ) and setNamespaceAware( ) to specify whether the parsers it creates will be validating parsers or not and whether they will know how to handle XML namespaces. You may also call setFeature( ) to set a feature of the underlying parser implementation. See http://www.saxproject.org for the names of standard parser features that can be enabled and disabled with this method. In Java 5.0, call setXIncludeAware( ) to specify that created parsers will recognize XInclude markup. Use setSchema( ) to specify a W3C XML Schema against which parsers should validate the document.

Once you have created and configured your factory object, simply call newSAXParser( ) to create a SAXParser object. Note that SAXParserFactory implementations are not typically threadsafe.

The javax.xml.parsers package allows parser implementations to be "plugged in". This pluggability is provided by the getInstance( ) method, which follows the following steps to determine which SAXBuilderFactory subclass to use:

• If the javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory system property is defined, then the class specified by that property is used.

• Otherwise, if the jre/lib/jaxp.properties file exists in the Java distribution and contains a definition for the javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory property, then the class specified by that property is used.

• Otherwise, if any of the JAR files on the classpath includes a file named META-INF/services/javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory, then the class named in that file will be used.

• Otherwise, a default implementation provided by the Java platform will be used.

public abstract class SAXParserFactory {
// Protected Constructors
     protected SAXParserFactory( );  
// Public Class Methods
     public static SAXParserFactory newInstance( );  
// Public Instance Methods
     public abstract boolean getFeature(String name) 
        throws ParserConfigurationException, 
        org.xml.sax.SAXNotRecognizedException, 
        org.xml.sax.SAXNotSupportedException;  
5.0  public javax.xml.validation.Schema getSchema( );  
     public boolean isNamespaceAware( );  
     public boolean isValidating( );  
5.0  public boolean isXIncludeAware( );  
     public abstract SAXParser newSAXParser( ) 
        throws ParserConfigurationException, 
        org.xml.sax.SAXException;  
     public abstract void setFeature(String name, boolean value) 
        throws ParserConfigurationException, 
        org.xml.sax.SAXNotRecognizedException, 
        org.xml.sax.SAXNotSupportedException;  
     public void setNamespaceAware(boolean awareness);  
5.0  public void setSchema(javax.xml.validation.Schema schema);  
     public void setValidating(boolean validating);  
5.0  public void setXIncludeAware(boolean state);  
}