Improving the performance of java and XML can be done in many ways. It all depends on the type of application you are building and the type of API that you are using the implementations.

For example you might be aware that processing an XML document using java can be done using SAX or DOM. But you should know the difference clearly between using the SAX and the DOM.

SAX is an event based model while DOM is tree structure. You could use SAX to process the document once opt for DOM if you are going to process the document multiple times.

DOM uses more memory when compared to that of SAX. To edit the XML documents you could very well opt for DOM. If you compare the performance of using SAX and DOM, SAX is much faster than DOM.

You should also consider the alternative APIs like JDOM and dom4j for processing XML documents using Java. Know the difference in the implementation as some of the API are designed with performance in mind and some with ease of use.

The URL,
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/xml/JavaTechandXML_part3/ has a lot of comparison and tips on how to improve the performance. It is worth to have a look at it.

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