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

11 January 2006, Expat 2.0.0 released.

Release 2.0.0 of the Expat XML parser is the end point of the 1.95.X series of releases. The goal was to solidify and stabilize the implementation of the given API, to add desirable features as long as they fit with the API, and to keep the API backwards compatible if extensions were required. Changes include:

Fixed headers for use from C++.
XML_GetCurrentLineNumber() and XML_GetCurrentColumnNumber() now return unsigned integers.
Added XML_LARGE_SIZE switch to enable 64-bit integers for byte indexes and line/column numbers.
Added support for AmigaOS.
Some mostly minor bug fixes. SF issues include: 1006708, 1021776, 1023646, 1114960, 1156398, 1221160, 1271642.

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
LuaExpat is a wrapper around Expat for the Lua programming language. The LuaSOAP library is a SOAP implementation built on top of LuaExpat.
Perl's XML::Parser module is a wrapper built around a binding to Expat in the XML::Parser::Expat module.
Documentation for the Python interface to Expat, part of the standard documentation for Python.
SAXExpat.NET, a .NET wrapper for Expat, conforming to the SAX for .NET specifications.
The Simple C Expat Wrapper is a wrapper around Expat that provides a light-weight object model somewhat like a DOM.
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.
expatpp -- C++ interface to Expat
SAX2 Wrapper for using Expat in Delphi, based on "SAX for Pascal" interface specs
The TclXML project includes a Tcl binding for Expat
tDOM is an alternate package providing XML support for Tcl, based in part on Expat.
Article on using Expat from PHP on <?PHPBuilder?>
(broken into lots of tiny pieces)
Objective-C interface to Expat
OCaml Expat is a wrapper around Expat for the Objective Caml language.
Ruby interface to Expat
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.
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.)
Expat4D is a plug-in for the 4th Dimension application framework.