Editing XML data binding (section)

==Alternatives==

An alternative approach to automatic data binding relies instead on hand-crafted [[XPath]] expressions that extract data from XML. This approach has some benefits but also has some drawbacks. First, the approach only needs proximate knowledge (e.g., topology, tag names, etc.) of the XML tree structure, which developers can determine by looking at the XML data. Furthermore, XPath allows the application to bind the relevant data items and filter out everything else, avoiding the unnecessary processing that would be required to completely unmarshall the entire XML document. The drawback of this approach is the lack of automation in implementing the object model and XPath expressions. Instead, the application developers have to create these artifacts manually, which is time-consuming, potentially error-prone, and hampers application maintenance when XML schemas and XML content models are updated. Another drawback is the lack of XML schema verification, which XML data bindings typically apply automatically during unmarshalling. Schema validity is typically required in secure applications.