Building Oracle XML Applications

Chapter 6. Processing XML with Java

In its relatively brief history, Java has become a dominant programming language for new software development projects and the main language taught to waves of new programmers in universities. Initially conceived as a portable language for client-side agents and user interfaces, Java’s most rapid adoption has been for writing complex, server-side applications. Since nearly any interesting server-side application makes heavy use of a relational database, Oracle responded to the strong demand for server-side Java and database integration by introducing Oracle8i ’s JServer product and has moved quickly to provide support for Java servlets and Java Server Pages ( JSPs) in its application server offerings. Starting with Oracle8i version 8.1.5, JServer has been provided with the database.

XML emerged in the age of Java and has been nearly inseparable from it. It is frequently said that, " Java is portable code, and XML is portable data“—a natural fit. In fact, from the beginning, the majority of software tools available for processing XML have been Java-based, and that tradition continues today. Vendors like Oracle and IBM—as well as organizations like the Apache Software Foundation—have done all of their XML innovation in Java first, with other language implementations—C, C++, PL/SQL, Perl, and others—being delivered in later phases. Given these dynamics, it’s not hard to figure out why Oracle8i ’s integration of rich server-side support for the industry’s ...