The Expat XML Parser

Expat is an XML parser library written in C. It is a stream-oriented parser in which an application registers handlers for things the parser might find in the XML document (like start tags). An introductory article on using Expat is available on xml.com.

This project aims to maintain Expat for both current and future users while improving the API to allow more reliable and robust access from "scripting" languages such as Python and Perl. We invite the community to participate on the mailing lists to help shape the future of Expat.

News

28 January 2003, Expat 1.95.6 released.

Added XML_FreeContentModel().
Added XML_MemMalloc(), XML_MemRealloc(), XML_MemFree().
Fixed a variety of bugs: see SF issues 615606, 616863, 618199, 653180, 673791.
Enhanced the regression test suite.
Man page improvements: includes SF issue 632146.

6 September 2002, Expat 1.95.5 released.

Added XML_UseForeignDTD() for improved SAX2 support.
Added XML_GetFeatureList().
Defined XML_Bool type and the values XML_TRUE and XML_FALSE.
Use an incomplete struct instead of a void* for the parser.
Fixed UTF-8 decoding bug that caused legal UTF-8 to be rejected.
Finally fixed bug where default handler would report DTD events that were already handled by another handler. Initial patch contributed by Darryl Miles.
Removed unnecessary DllMain() function that caused static linking into a DLL to be difficult.
Added VC++ projects for building static libraries.
Reduced line-length for all source code and headers to be no longer than 80 characters, to help with AS/400 support.
Reduced memory copying during parsing (SF patch #600964).
Fixed a variety of bugs: see SF issues 580793, 434664, 483514, 580503, 581069, 584041, 584183, 584832, 585537, 596555, 596678, 598352, 598944, 599715, 600479, 600971.

4 September 2002, Development roadmap published.

The initial version of the development roadmap was released for comment.

Old news archive

References & 3rd-party Wrappers

If you know of any additional articles or resources which should be linked to from this page, please send email to Fred Drake (fdrake@acm.org). We're especially interested in links to tutorial information and open source interfaces to Expat from languages other than C.

James Clark's original Expat page, for Expat 1.2 and earlier
Introductory article on using Expat on xml.com
XML Tools 2 is an AppleScript scripting addition that allows AppleScript applications to work with XML data; it is based on Expat.
Simkin is an open source scripting language available under the GNU LGPL. It can be embedded in XML and supports a DOM-like API backed by Expat.
The Simple C Expat Wrapper is a wrapper around Expat that provides a light-weight object model somewhat like a DOM.
Documentation for the Python interface to Expat, part of the standard documentation for Python
C++ Wrappers for the Expat XML Parser, an article by Tim Smith providing object-oriented wrappers for Expat. The wrappers use some MFC-biased naming, but look interesting.
Arabica -- an XML Parser toolkit for C++ programmers, with SAX2 implementations based on several parsers, including Expat.
C++ interface to Expat (old; not updated since Expat 1.2)
EasySoap is a C++ SOAP implementation which uses Expat.
A discussion of another way to manage stateful callbacks, using Expat as a sample library.
The GOBO project is working on an Eiffel binding for Expat. Development is active and the package is fully supported in GOBO 3.0 and 3.1, though there isn't much status information about the Expat bindings on the website. (Most activity is reportedly on the relevant mailing lists.)
The TclXML project includes a Tcl binding for Expat
tDOM is an alternate package providing XML support for Tcl, based in part on Expat.
Objective-C interface to Expat
Ruby interface to Expat
Article on using Expat from PHP on <?PHPBuilder?>
(broken into lots of tiny pieces)
SAX2 Wrapper for using Expat in Delphi, based on "SAX for Pascal" interface specs
Expat4D is a plug-in for the 4th Dimension application framework.