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RapidXML vs Xerces-C++

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When comparing RapidXML vs Xerces-C++, the Slant community recommends Xerces-C++ for most people. In the question“What are the best XML parser/generator libraries for C++?” Xerces-C++ is ranked 1st while RapidXML is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Xerces-C++ is:

Xerces has many applications and libraries that give additional functionality to the parser. XQilla, for example, allows for XQuery and XPath implementation.

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Common Questions

What are the best XML parser/generator libraries for C++?

RapidXML

Xerces-C++

Pros

Pro
Header-only implementation

This allows for a very simple integration process of the parser into your code. Only the .hpp file would need to be included into the library.

Pro
Very fast parsing speed

"... parsing speed is about 50-100x faster than Xerces DOM, 30-60x faster than TinyXml, 3-12x faster than pugxml, and about 5% - 30% faster than pugixml"

Pro
Allows modification of the DOM tree

The DOM tree that is created from the parser is fully modifiable. Nodes and attributes can be added/removed, and their contents changed.

Pro
Additional libraries and applications

Xerces has many applications and libraries that give additional functionality to the parser. XQilla, for example, allows for XQuery and XPath implementation.

Pro
Validation support

Allows the validation of XML corresponding to the DTD or schema rules linked.

Pro
Full Unicode support

This allows all characters to be used and read/written in the DOM tree.

Pro
DOM/SAX compliant

Xerces-C++ comes packaged with the API documentation for SAX and DOM. These are two of the most highly used programming interfaces with XML.
Implementation of SAX 1.0/2.0 specification.
Implementation of DOM 1.0, 2.0 (Core, Traversal and Range), and 3.0 (Core, Load and Save) specification.

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Cons

Con
Not W3C compliant

Ignoring DOCTYPE declarations causes RapidXML to not be a W3C compliant parser. Though it can still successfully parse and produce complete trees of all valid XML files.

Con
Overkill for simple needs

If a website only uses a small number of XML, that can easily be handled manually, Xerces-C++ may be considered overkill. All the validation and compliance may not be necessary.