Xerces 2 for Java, the Apache XML Project's second generation XML parser, has now finished its beta phase and is considered production quality.

Xerces 2's big change over the original Xerces is the introduction of Xerces Native Interface (XNI), "a complete framework for building parser components and configurations that is extremely modular and easy to program."

In terms of added support for standards, Xerces 2 has full support for W3C XML Schemas and SAX 2.0, and partial support for DOM Level 3 Core, Abstract Schemas and Load and Save.

Though significantly rewritten, Xerces 2 continues to implement standard APIs such as JAXP, DOM and SAX, and therefore can be easily dropped into existing applications.

For those following the beta series of Xerces 2 releases, a change history is available.

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