XML Companion, The, Third Edition

Tree manipulation

Most XML processors support the tree-walking approach to provide access to the document in a 'random-access' method (by 'tree-walking' the document structure). The XML processor first reads the entire document into memory, before allowing the application instant access to any part of it. There is no need for multi-pass parsing. The processor therefore organizes the content so that it can be easily found and manipulated. Applications that benefit from this approach include XML-sensitive document editors and transformation tools (including XSLT engines).

But, as this is a more sophisticated technique than the event-driven approach described above, there are some concepts and associated terminology that need to be understood.