| Xerces2 Java Parser 2.8.0 Release |

Welcome to the future! Xerces2 is the next generation of high performance, fully compliant XML parsers in the Apache Xerces family. This new version of Xerces introduces the Xerces Native Interface (XNI), a complete framework for building parser components and configurations that is extremely modular and easy to program.

The Apache Xerces2 parser is the reference implementation of XNI but other parser components, configurations, and parsers can be written using the Xerces Native Interface. For complete design and implementation documents, refer to the XNI Manual.

Xerces2 is a fully conforming XML Schema processor. For more information, refer to the XML Schema page.

Xerces2 also provides a complete implementation of the Document Object Model Level 3 Core and Load/Save W3C Recommendations and provides a complete implementation of the XML Inclusions (XInclude) W3C Recommendation. It also provides support for OASIS XML Catalogs.

Xerces2 is able to parse documents written according to the XML 1.1 Recommendation, except that it does not yet provide an option to enable normalization checking as described in section 2.13 of this specification. It also handles namespaces according to the XML Namespaces 1.1 Recommendation, and will correctly serialize XML 1.1 documents if the DOM level 3 load/save APIs are in use.

| Features of This Release |

The Xerces2 Java Parser 2.8.0 supports the following standards and APIs:

- eXtensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 Third Edition Recommendation
- Namespaces in XML Recommendation
- eXtensible Markup Language (XML) 1.1 First Edition Recommendation
- Namespaces in XML 1.1 Recommendation
- XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0 Recommendation
- Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core, Load and Save, (DOM) Level 2 Core, Events, and Traversal and Range Recommendations
- Simple API for XML (SAX) 2.0.2 Core and Extensions
- Java APIs for XML Processing (JAXP) 1.3
- XML Schema 1.0 Structures and Datatypes Second Edition Recommendations

| Backwards compatibility |

| According to the DOM Level 3 specification and DOM Level 2 errata the createElementNS and createAttributeNS methods convert empty string namespaceURI to null. Please, let us know if this change affects your application.

| Changes from Previous Release |

| The Xerces2 Java Parser 2.8.0 contains several new validation related features and provides enhancements to the schema annotation support in the XML Schema API. For a more complete list of changes, refer to the Release Information page.

| Changes from Xerces 1.x |

| Xerces2 is a nearly complete rewrite of the Xerces 1.x codebase in order to make the code cleaner, more modular, and easier to maintain. It includes a completely redesigned and rewritten XML Schema validation engine. Applications using only the standard interfaces such as JAXP, DOM, and SAX should not see any differences.

| License Information |

| The Xerces-J 2.8.0 release is available in source code and precompiled binary (JAR files) form. Both Xerces-J packages are made available under the Apache Software License.

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