setContentHandler

setContentHandler is a method found in certain programming interfaces, particularly those dealing with parsing or processing structured data like XML. Its primary purpose is to register a callback object that will be invoked when the parser encounters specific events during the data processing.

When a parser encounters an element's start tag, it might call a method on the registered content handler, such as startElement. Similarly, for an element's end tag, it would call a method like endElement. For the text content within an element, a method like characters might be invoked on the handler. This allows the application to react to the structure and content of the data as it is being parsed.

The setContentHandler method is crucial for event-driven parsing. Instead of building a complete in-memory representation of the data, which can be memory-intensive for large files, event-driven parsers signal significant points in the data stream. The content handler then processes these events as they occur, enabling efficient handling of large or complex datasets. Implementations of content handlers are specific to the parser and the data format being processed.