I am testing various methods to read (possibly large, and very often) XML configuration files in PHP. No writing is ever needed. I have two successful implementations, one using SimpleXML (which I know is a DOM parser) and one using XMLReader.

I know that a DOM reader must read the whole tree and therefore uses more memory. My tests reflect that. I also know that A SAX parser is an "event-based" parser that uses less memory because it reads each node from the stream without checking what is next.

XMLReader also reads from a stream with the cursor providing data about the node it is currently at. So, it definitely sounds like XMLReader (http://us2.php.net/xmlreader) is not a DOM parser, but my question is, is it a SAX parser, or something else? It seems like XMLReader behaves the way a SAX parser does but does not throw the events themselves (in other words, can you construct a SAX parser with XMLReader?)

If it is something else, does the classification it's in have a name?