diff --git a/sandbox/contributions/XML-Indexing-Demo/src/java/org/apache/lucenesandbox/xmlindexingdemo/XMLDocumentHandlerSAX.java b/sandbox/contributions/XML-Indexing-Demo/src/java/org/apache/lucenesandbox/xmlindexingdemo/XMLDocumentHandlerSAX.java
index b2cc28d0f55..32170daa22e 100644
--- a/sandbox/contributions/XML-Indexing-Demo/src/java/org/apache/lucenesandbox/xmlindexingdemo/XMLDocumentHandlerSAX.java
+++ b/sandbox/contributions/XML-Indexing-Demo/src/java/org/apache/lucenesandbox/xmlindexingdemo/XMLDocumentHandlerSAX.java
@@ -1,7 +1,20 @@
 package org.apache.lucenesandbox.xmlindexingdemo;
 
-import org.xml.sax.*;
-import javax.xml.parsers.*;
+/**
+ * Copyright 2004 The Apache Software Foundation
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
 
 import org.apache.lucene.document.Document;
 import org.apache.lucene.document.Field;
@@ -9,8 +22,14 @@ import org.apache.lucene.document.Field;
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;
 
-public class XMLDocumentHandlerSAX
-  extends HandlerBase {
+import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
+import javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser;
+import javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory;
+import org.xml.sax.Attributes;
+import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
+import org.xml.sax.helpers.DefaultHandler;
+
+public class XMLDocumentHandlerSAX extends DefaultHandler {
   /** A buffer for each XML element */
   private StringBuffer elementBuffer = new StringBuffer();
 
@@ -21,30 +40,64 @@ public class XMLDocumentHandlerSAX
     throws ParserConfigurationException, SAXException, IOException {
     SAXParserFactory spf = SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
 
+    // use validating parser?
+    //spf.setValidating(false);
+    // make parser name space aware?
+    //spf.setNamespaceAware(true);
+
     SAXParser parser = spf.newSAXParser();
-    parser.parse(xmlFile, this);
+    //System.out.println("parser is validating: " + parser.isValidating());
+    try {
+      parser.parse(xmlFile, this);
+    } catch (org.xml.sax.SAXParseException spe) {
+      System.out.println("SAXParser caught SAXParseException at line: " +
+        spe.getLineNumber() + " column " +
+        spe.getColumnNumber());
+    }
   }
 
   // call at document start
-  public void startDocument() {
+  public void startDocument() throws SAXException {
     mDocument = new Document();
   }
 
   // call at element start
-  public void startElement(String localName, AttributeList atts)
-    throws SAXException {
-    elementBuffer.setLength(0);
+  public void startElement(String namespaceURI, String localName,
+    String qualifiedName, Attributes attrs) throws SAXException {
+
+    String eName = localName;
+     if ("".equals(eName)) {
+       eName = qualifiedName; // namespaceAware = false
+     }
+     // list the attribute(s)
+     if (attrs != null) {
+       for (int i = 0; i < attrs.getLength(); i++) {
+         String aName = attrs.getLocalName(i); // Attr name
+         if ("".equals(aName)) { aName = attrs.getQName(i); }
+         // perform application specific action on attribute(s)
+         // for now just dump out attribute name and value
+         System.out.println("attr " + aName+"="+attrs.getValue(i));
+       }
+     }
+     elementBuffer.setLength(0);
   }
 
   // call when cdata found
-  public void characters(char[] text, int start, int length) {
+  public void characters(char[] text, int start, int length)
+    throws SAXException {
     elementBuffer.append(text, start, length);
   }
 
   // call at element end
-  public void endElement(String localName)
-    throws SAXException {
-    mDocument.add(Field.Text(localName, elementBuffer.toString()));
+  public void endElement(String namespaceURI, String simpleName,
+    String qualifiedName)  throws SAXException {
+
+    String eName = simpleName;
+    if ("".equals(eName)) {
+      eName = qualifiedName; // namespaceAware = false
+    }
+
+    mDocument.add(Field.Text(eName, elementBuffer.toString()));
   }
 
   public Document getDocument() {