XML Transformation framework suggestions?

Question

I am starting to design an application which primarily does XML transformation from one format to the other. The user provides the input XML and tells the application what type it is and what is the type of output XML he/she wants and the application then converts the input xml to output xml. I wanted to ask if there is a good framework (preferably Java based) which does that. I am thinking of using XSLT with custom actions but if someone can suggest an existing framework which already does provide all the scaffolding then I will save time. I am about to explore Smooks. One problem with XSLT which someone mentioned was that it might not be able to handle huge files > 50mb or so without loading it all in memory. Is that true? Also the input format might sometimes not be XML..could be text file hence I should be able to add other transformers. Ofcourse I understand the framework would just be that - a framework I will be providing the actual conversion code. But would love to hear from experts out there :) Thanks -v-

Answer 1

If you are transforming XML into XML, then XSLT is the way to go. The size of the document you can transform is really only limited by cpu and memory (like everything else). You will not find a more elegant solution for transforming XML than XSLT. As far as your scaffolding code goes, I would suggest making the transformation objects modular (via a dependency injection framework like Spring), so that if the input formats change, you can very easily change the transformation logic as well.

Answer 2

I have zeroed in on the following frameworks to meet my requirements, Apache Camel Smooks XSLT (as Camel endpoints) XMLDB in Oracle