xml-stream

XmlStream

XmlStream is a Node.js XML stream parser and editor, based on node-expat (libexpat SAX parser binding).

Rationale

When working with large XML files, it is probably a bad idea to use an XML to JavaScript object converter, or simply buffer the whole document in memory. Then again, a typical SAX parser might be too low-level for some tasks (and often a real pain).

This is why we've rolled our own stream parser that tries to address these shortcomings. It processes an XML stream chunk by chunk and fires events only for nodes of interest, matching them with CSS-like selectors.

Events

Supported events:

• data on outgoing data chunk,
• end when parsing has ended,
• startElement[: selector] on opening tag for selector match,
• updateElement[: selector] on finished node for selector match with its contents buffered,
• endElement[: selector] on closing tag for selector match,
• text[: selector] on tag text for selector match.

When adding listeners for startElement, updateElement, and text the callback can modify the provided node, before it is sent to the consumer.

Selector syntax is CSS-like and currently supports:

• ancestor descendant
• parent > child

Take a look at the examples for more information.