I'm actually creating my set of Java objects in memory and telling them to write themselves out and then read themselves back in and write themselves out again. This makes sure that I can read and write the XML that the objects will generate.

I'm using the Java StAX implementation as the underpinnings for this, because it's a fast, low-memory usage package. Since I'm working with a great many objects, that's important in the long run. I'm using the XMLStreamWriter and XMLEventReader interfaces respectively for writing and reading. (I was using XMLStreamReader originally, but I got to a point in the implementation where I really needed to be able to "peek" ahead in the stream. XMLEventReader supports that, while the XMLStreamReader doesn't. :) )

I picked up the open source Notepad++ for the purpose of formatting the XML, because that's what one of our other developers was using. You see, I don't actually output any carriage return / line feed pairs...