Welcome to the --
Microsoft XML Parser for Java

Version 1.9
May 29th 1998

This package contains the source code for the latest version of the XML Parser. This is newer than the XML Parser that shipped with Internet Explorer 4.0.

Warning: This includes breaking changes from the 1.0 version -- See Changes since 1.0 for more information.

The Microsoft® XML Parser is a validating XML parser written in Java™. The parser checks for well-formed documents and optionally permits checking of the documents' validity. Once parsed, the XML document is exposed as a tree through a simple set of Java methods, which we are working with the W3C to standardize. These methods support reading and/or writing XML structures, such as the Channel Definition Format (CDF) or other text formats based on XML, and thereby enable building applications using XML.

This version of the parser implements the W3C working draft of the XML specification dated November 17th, 1997.

New in Version 1.9

  • Changed namespace attributes to match latest namespace spec. So the as attribute is now called prefix and the href is now called src and is optional and a new required attribute for uniquely identifying the name space was added which is called ns. See separate XML Namespaces specification Non-MS link.
  • Fixed the infamous jdk11 version check. It now sets jdk11 to true for any version number that converted to floating point is greater or equal to "1.1".
  • Disabled loading XML that contains non-standard short end tags.
  • Fixed some DTD validation bugs.
See the Release Notes for a detailed list of new parser features, changes, and bug fixes.

What this Package Includes

Classes Full Java source code for the XML parser, XML DSO and C++ source code for the xml stream optimization is included in the classes folder. The source code for the xml viewer is in the viewer folder.
Documentation Full class documentation for the XML Object Model and the parser, including API overviews with sample code is in the documentation folder.
msxml.class A command line parser that invokes the XML parser and uses the XML object model to dump out the XML data. You can run the XML Parser from the command line as follows: 
  jview msxml -d samples\channel.xml
Type jview msxml to see an updated list of command line options. Source code is aso included in the msxml.java file.
Samples An assortment of example XML files - with some DTD's, and some JScript that uses the XML Object Model to format the XML data into HTML for display. Requires IE 4.0
XML DSO Samples An Java Applet has been included that is an XML data provider for use in Internet Explorer 4.0 Data Binding. For example, this causes the rows of an HTML table to be populated with the data found in the XML file. This is an update of the version that shipped with Internet Explorer 4.0. Source code for the applet is in classes\com\ms\xml\dso. Requires IE 4.0
XML Viewer Applet A Java Applet has been included for viewing XML data in a collapsable tree widget. XMLViewer.htm requires IE 4.0 but applet should run under other JDK's.
XML Weather Demo A page that loads XML weather information using either the C++ XML Parser or the Java XML Parser, and then interacts with that information using a standard XML Object Model. Requires IE 4.0
Auction Demo A real live demonstration of an XML based weblication. This requires installation onto your webserver and instructions on how to install it are included. It also provides documentation on how it works. This demo was given at the Introduction to XML session at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in San Diego. Requires IE 4.0
XMLjavaParser.dsp A Developer Studio Project File for compiling the XML Java source code.
make A folder containing an nmake file for building the classes. There's also a version of XMLInputStream.java that you can use if you don't have the packages required to make the XMLStream.java work (com.ms.com.*;, com.ms.com.IUnknown, and com.ms.com.Variant).
install.exe This installs the new classes, updates your registry ClassPath variables, installs the XMLURLStream.dll in the dll folder. To uninstall type install -u and drag the installation folder (default c:\msxml) to the trash can. To see all the command line options type install -h

Reusing the XML Parser Code

If you're planning to reuse the Microsoft XML Parser code in other products, please read the Microsoft XML Parser in Java license agreement.

Technical Feedback

You can send general feedback and questions on Microsoft's support for XML to the Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 Online Support page Non-SBN link.

Developers who wish to provide technical feedback on the implementation of XML can subscribe to the public xml-dev mailing list Non-MS link (send mail to majordomo@ic.ac.uk with the subject line "subscribe," and the text "subscribe xml-dev name@address" in the body of the message). This list is very technical, and is for XML developers only.

Additional Information on XML

For general information on XML, see the following:

The Internet Client SDK also has some useful information about XML support in Internet Explorer 4.0:

© 1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of use.