difference between SAX and XSLT - xml newbie

Hi

I have been reading about xml and have come across SAX and XSLT. Correct me if I am wrong - It seems to me that both do the same job i.e both are used to convert xml files into html. Does one have to learn both SAX and XSLT or any one can get the job done. I am a bit confused about this, so a simple explanation will be lot of help to me.

Thanks

hade-

I will try to break this down for you. Yes, you basically can do the same with both, but it all depends on how much programming you want to do, what languages you know and the environment you are working in. XSL comes in two flavors - transformations and formatting objects (i.e. XSLT and XSL-FO.) XSLT is an XML document as well as code to transform XML. It is most commonly used for transformations to HTML. Now if you like XML and it’s structure then grab a tutorial on XSLT and go crazy. There is good information here on DevShed and also XML.com is thorough.

If you want to work with the XML doc in a more normal programming language then you will need an API to do your dirty work. SAX and DOM work with the doc in different ways. SAX is event driven and works straight thru on a node by node basis, but the DOM loads the whole doc into memory and allows manipulation to the nodes so you can then save the updated doc back out. If you check out xml.apache.org and the Xerces project you can see the different language options to work in. Usually you will be looking at C++, Java and now Perl, but new parsers are being written all the time in new languages.

So pick your output and your language of choice and have fun!!

Chinnman Out!!