Is XMLInputFactory thread-safe?

Question

When profiling my application, I noticed that creating instances of XMLInputFactory over and over is very expensive. Is it safe to share its instances across multiple threads?

The javadoc doesn't say anything about its thread-safety and searching the internet doesn't give a definite answer!

@jakub.petr Can you point me to some documentation or resource which discusses this? — Chandra Sekar, Feb 07 '14 at 17:45
maybe it's not https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AXIOM-74 — Leo, Feb 07 '14 at 17:55
I peeked into OpenJDK sources and just configuration must be synchronized. But I must say, that it may depend upon implementation. XMLInputFactory itself is abstract! — jakub.petr, Feb 07 '14 at 18:05
not sure about jdk7, but check this out http://svn.codehaus.org/woodstox/wstx/trunk/release-notes/USAGE - it seems to be for woodstox — Leo, Feb 07 '14 at 19:12
@Leo Looks like I added my answer at the same time as your comment. Provide it as an answer and I'll accept it. — Chandra Sekar, Feb 08 '14 at 07:52

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 07 '14 at 19:00

I have decided to use Woodstox as the StAX implementation. It is both much faster than the default JDK implementation and explicitly mentions thread safety.

Woodstox factories are thread-safe after configuration phase (calling setProperty()), but not during it. Most importantly, once all configuration is done, calling 'createXMLxxx' methods is fully thread-safe.

Is XMLInputFactory thread-safe?

1 Answers1