Customer Reviews

C++ XML

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book gives a brief introduction to many XML technologies, with short samples in C++. There are some hints of some interesting topics like which sorts of design patterns to apply in different circumstances, and how to manage data structures when working with the DOM. But, most of the book is just a general overview of XML, like any of the other many XML books.

I was able to read this entire book in about 3 hours, and was left wishing there was a lot more depth. I was frustrated to have the author often mention that he couldn't go into potentially interesting details because of "space constraints". What space constraints? "Inside XML" by the same publisher has larger pages, is 4 times longer, and is only $10 more expensive. And, if space was a constraint, I think the author could have saved a lot of space by leaving out things like a chapter describing STL (which is used in only a couple of places in the book). Also, each chapter seemed to use a different sample XML document, complete with DTD. To save space, the author could have used the same sample document in each chapter.

I had also hoped for more coverage of MSXML. It is briefly mentioned in one chapter. The MSDN site is a much better source of information here.

In summary, if you are looking for an introduction to XML and use C++, this book might be good for you (although you'll need more books for more information on the various technologies). But, if you already know something about XML and are looking for more information on how to do use C++ for your XML work, you'll be very disappointed.

Although XML is a buzzword du jour, its acceptance in the C++ world
is surprisingly slow, especially in non-Microsoft environments. This
is mostly due to the lack of an accepted and standardized API. The
standardization process is painfully slow and even though there are
a number of publicly available parsers with C++ bindings, they vary in
their approach to XML processing as well as in the minute details that
make them work with some C++ compilers but not with the others.

In such an environment, a book devoted specifically to processing XML
using C++ is mostly welcome. Read below and decide for yourself.

The good:

- the book covers all major XML processing technologies
available for C++ programmers. It provides examples and explains the
difference in various approaches.

- It will not bore you with XML basic description, excessive quoting
of XML standards, or useless hype (99.9% of XML books out there are
plagued with all of the above).

The bad:

- Even though all of the technologies are compared, the comparison is
crammed in the back of the book, after the chapters describing all
of these technologies in great detail. This sounds like a poor
choice, because these technologies are very different from each
other and different tasks require different approaches. A good
overview and comparison of all of those in the beginning would be
much welcome. It would give readers an idea of what technology to
choose.

- Most of the large examples are Windows-oriented.

- Source code for the examples is only available on an attached CD.
It is not available on-line, which is a shame - I though we've
already passed the stage of "proprietary examples." Apart from other
obvious advantages, having examples on-line would facilitate
contribution of patches and improvements from the readers.

- Speaking of the examples on the CD, they are presented in the worst
manner I've ever seen. The examples I've played so far are bundled
with XML parser distribution (each of them!), have plenty of
temporary files around (like editor backups, or files that Visual
C++ produces). Even those examples that are supposed to work in both
UNIX and Windows come with no Makefiles, the source code looks and
feels rather immature (I though, one learns to NOT supply an
identifier to #endif directive during the 1st year of C/C++
education). All in all, each example I've seen so far feels like a
quick hack, hastily cooked up and released without a mere attempt to
make it look presentable. This is really bad, since, given the
scarcity of books on the subject, there will be plenty of people
fighting with the source code from the book.

The bottom-line: this books falls way short of my "golden standard"
(UNIX books by W. Richard Stevens). Nevertheless, it seems to be the
only book on the subject and it does cover all major technologies. If
you need to work with XML in C++ - buy this book. Once a revised
edition is out (or a better book appears), switch to it.

I bought this book with great expectation but I was dissappointed. The book was more of using the API's. But unfortunately the examples are not very concise and clear. The book does not mention how to utilize the parser and which one is used for the examples in the book is unclear. Its more of hurried combination of code for SAX and DOM and you could be left confused. I personally would recommend some other books on XML even though it might not have C++ since the examples in these books can be easily converted to C++.

This book is of type, learn processing XML in C++ in 24 hours.
It started out well with decent explanation of SAX and DOM (I personally feel any good c++ programmer can figure the algorithms himself). After that it completely lost track. If some one know the table of contents, he can probably search on google to find articles and bind them to make a book. xml_rpc example was directly copied from the original samples of xml_rpc implementation. For examples, the author kept on jumping from one XML parser to another one. I understand why he did that (because all existing C++ xml parsers lack some thing or other). He probably must have written chapters on XSLT, XPath, XMLRPC, SOAP in a lot of hurry to get the book done.

I felt compelled to write a review for this book: It is extremely clear, concise, and illuminating. Many programming books (especially those on XML) seem to repeating the same hype that you find all over the Internet. Fabio Arciniegas cuts through this and tells you what you really need to know to about the various XML librarys available for C++. He shows you how and why they work, how to use them, and gives excellent advice on *when* to use one approach over another. For example, he gives objective discussions of SOAP vs XML-RPC, and of XML Schema vs other alternatives. In addition, his presentation makes use of familiar design patterns, and he clearly explains why the patterns were used. A wonderful bonus is the chapter on using XML to add an extension language to your programs. You get more than your money's worth with this one.

`C++ XML' does an excellent job addressing the specific (and difficult) issues associated with processing XML in C++.

The first hurdle for a C++ programmer who wants to start using XML is to understand the big picture -- what has been done by whom and where.
In the first two chapters, the author does an admirable job of providing this background information.

The books then leads the reader through most of the concepts of this flourishing technology in chapters illustrated by accurately commented examples.

I am a C++ programmer and an XML beginner. Having read the book, I had my first real purpose SAX parser running in three days.
Incidently I learnt more deeply about XML in this book than in any general purpose XML book although,
as the author stresses, this is not the initial purpose of C++ XML.

This book is great if you understand the basics of XML and really want C++ coverage. If you are looking for introductory stuff this is not your book and you might get confused, but if you want a serious and concise work on C++ and XML this is a MUST HAVE.
Great work, much needed on a sea of introductory xml books.
Thank you.

Some people believe in pages, the more the better. I do not think so. With wealth of information on the Web, it is not hard to generate a thick book by cutting-and-pasting. But it requires hands-on experience, good judgement, thougthful evaluation, and careful selection to generate a book like this one. I like the concise and right-to-the point description, especially the UML diagrams, which make the points clearer.

Moreoever, thick books with too many details can get out-of-date quicker because it is the details that obsolete quickly.

Equipped with the basic concepts learned from this book, one can confidently surf the Web for more detailed and up-to-date informaion.

I think this book worth every panny I paid.

I don't usually write reviews, but I'm very grateful to this book, so when I saw a rather harsh review by "yoda" I felt compelled to write a few lines telling you my own experience.
I'm a seasoned C++ programmer who like everybody else had to learn about XML in the last year. I tried many online resources, from msdn to free tutorials here and there, I also tried general XML books. *Nowhere* have I found such variety and depth of C++ specific examples and design criteria like in this book. The author delivers *dozens* of original samples on various parsers and platforms.
I have enjoyed the interesting examples in this book (like a C++ OpenGL viewer for a home-made XML 3D language) and I have personally used the code for my projects -both the original code that was developed for this book and code that is included on the CD from other free sources (and is clearly marked as so)- thus saving *hours* of IT work. Now *that* is what I consider money-worth. Thank you!

This is a great book for C++ developers working with XML.
Covers SAX 2.0, DOM 2.0 and other parsers (libxml for Linux).
I loved the discussion about XML-RPC and SOAP. This book will probably become THE classic for how to write C++ XML code!
My only complaint is chapter 11 on XSLT transforms is not sufficient. The author has a very readable writing style. This book finally helped me understand one of the most confusing API's, the XSD and XML schema.