DOM Parser Vs. SAX Parser

Many developers sometimes confuse which is better to parse the XML document. Ofcourse myself also got doubt which parser I can use for this situation.  Since I have read about DOM and SAX very long back. Just refreshing it again

DOM (Document Object Model) Parser:

• Tree model parser(Object based) (Tree of nodes).
• DOM loads the file into the memory and then parse the file.
• Has memory constraints since it loads the whole XML file before parsing.
• DOM is read and write (can insert or delete the node).
• If the XML content is small then prefer DOM parser.
• Backward and forward search is possible for searching the tags and evaluation of the information inside the tags. So this gives the ease of navigation.
• Slower at run time.

SAX (Simple API for XML Parsing) Parser: 

• Event based parser (Sequence of events). Event based means..don't be confused with word "event". Here event means. (e.g. <something>), then it triggers the tagStarted event (actual name of event might differ). Similarly when the end of the tag is met while parsing (</something>), it triggers tagEnded. Using a SAX parser implies you need to handle these events and make sense of the data returned with each event.
• SAX parses the file at it reads i.e. Parses node by node.
• No memory constraints as it does not store the XML content in the memory.
• SAX is read only i.e. can’t insert or delete the node.
• Use SAX parser when memory content is large.
• SAX reads the XML file from top to bottom and backward navigation is not possible.
• Faster at run time.

Conclusion : DOM Parser is better over SAX Parser, if the XML document is small. If you don't know the size of  a XML, I mean size is huge go for SAX Parser.