Building Oracle XML Applications

Parsing and Programmatically Constructing XML

The Oracle XML Parser for Java is an amazing little piece of software. It provides everything we need to:

• Parse XML documents and DTDs

• Validate XML documents against a DTD

• Programmatically construct and manipulate XML documents

• Search XML documents using XPath expressions

• Transform XML documents using XSLT stylesheets

By the end of this chapter, we’ll have done all these tasks, but in the next few sections we focus on the first three. First, let’s make sure we’ve got the latest version of the Oracle XML Parser for Java software and that it’s properly installed in your Oracle8i database.

Installing Oracle XML Parser for Java

To verify that the Oracle XML Parser for Java is properly installed in your Oracle8i database, do the following:

1. Connect to your Oracle8i database with SQL*Plus:

   sqlplus xmlbook/xmlbook

2. Check the status of the oracle.xml.parser.v2.DOMParser class by running the following SQL statement:

   SELECT SUBSTR(dbms_java.longname(object_name),1,30) AS class, status
     FROM all_objects 
    WHERE object_type = 'JAVA CLASS'
      AND object_name = dbms_java.shortname('oracle/xml/parser/v2/DOMParser')

If you see the result:

CLASS                          STATUS
------------------------------ -------
oracle/xml/parser/v2/DOMParser VALID

then the Oracle XML Parser for Java is already installed and ready to be used. You do not need to complete any further installation steps.

If instead you see the SQL*Plus no rows selected message, complete the following steps to install the Oracle ...