Learning XSLT (Paperback)

~ Michael Fitzgerald Dr (Author)
Key Phrases: transforming documents, numbering levels, outputting text, Building New Documents, Rhode Island, Instant Saxon (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I think this book is very well put together and succeeds in making what could be a very tedious subject relatively interesting. I am sure that anyone starting to work with XSLT will find it most helpful but you will need to get Xalan going as well as downloads the examples." - John Collins, news@UK, March

Product Description

Learning XSLT moves smoothly from the simple to complex, illustrating all aspects of XSLT 1.0 through step-by-step examples that you'll practice as you work through the book. Thorough in its coverage of the language, the book makes few assumptions about what you may already know. You'll learn about XSLT's template-based syntax, how XSLT templates work with each other, and gain an understanding of XSLT variables. Learning XSLT also explains how the XML Path Language (XPath) is used by XSLT and provides a glimpse of what the future holds for XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0. The ability to transform one XML vocabulary to another is fundamental to exploiting the power of XML. Learning XSLT is a carefully paced, example-rich introduction to XSLT that will have you understanding and using XSLT on your own in no time.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media (November 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596003277
• ISBN-13: 978-0596003272
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #338,911 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The O'Reilly Learning Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid material for the beginning XSLT coder..., March 27, 2004

By	Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Target Audience
Developers who are looking for an entry level text to learn XSLT and XPath.

Contents
This is a tutorial guide for teaching yourself the fundamentals of Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations, or XSLT.

The book contains the following chapters: Preface; Transforming Documents with XSLT; Building New Documents with XSLT; Controlling Output; Traversing the Tree; XPath and XSLT Functions; Copying Nodes; Using Variables and Parameters; Sorting Things Out; Numbering Lists; Templates; Using Keys; Conditional Processing; Working with Multiple Documents; Alternative Stylesheets; Extensions; XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0; Writing an XSLT Processor Interface; Parting Words; Appendix: XSLT Processors; Glossary; Index

Review
While XML is becoming the de facto standard for data exchange between programs and platforms, it does nothing to allow the reader to see the data in a useful, formatted output. And, since XML is not concerned about presentation of data, that's proper. What you need is some way to turn that data into readable output based on the reader's needs. To do that, you use XSLT. That's where this book comes into play.

Michael Fitzgerald has written a concise, easy-to-follow book that will allow you to start working with the XSLT language. Since this book is not combined with every other XML technology known to man, you will not get lost in a morass of acronyms or concepts that would quickly confuse the beginner. The focus is just XSLT, and the assumption is that you are approaching the language for the first time. There are a number of examples that give you hands-on experience during the learning process, and most of the examples also show a screen print of the browser output so that you know if you were successful with your coding. The code can also be downloaded from the book's website, so if you just want to skip to the output, you can do that.

The author doesn't try to write for both the beginner and the expert. Since the focus is on the beginning XSLT coder, the person with an existing base of XSLT experience may not find this book of much use. I don't say that as a gripe against the book, rather as a way to manage your expectations. It's better than a "For Dummies" title, but it's not an exhaustive guide to all that is XSLT. If you fall into the target audience, you should gain a lot from this title.

Conclusion
Learning XSLT is a very good choice to start your foray into the world of XML transformations. You should come away with the basic information you need to be effective and continue to expand your experience.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Provides a solid introduction to XSLT, December 20, 2003

By	Foti Massimo (Vezia (Switzerland)) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While XSLT isn't a complex language, its declarative and template-based nature can make harder than expected to learn it, especially for people used to procedural languages. That's why a book like this, which provides a solid introduction to XSLT, may be more valuable than you would expect. The author manages to assemble an entry-level book without writing another useless "for dummies" guide. Fitzgerald filled the book with a huge amount of practical examples; you get plenty of code listings that often build on top of each other; incrementing the complexity along the way (an effective choice). In my opinion the writing style isn't always crystal clear and the author often introduce topics too early, briefly mentioning things that get a full explanation only a few chapters later. Notwithstanding this shortcoming, I think it's an excellent book that can really help getting started with XSLT. I would suggest to read it in a linear fashion, from beginning to the end in order to get the best out of it.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good and bad, April 11, 2006

By	G. Stark - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I found Learning XSLT confusing from a beginner's point of view. It's poorly indexed, and Fitzgerald often uses XSLT vocabulary in examples long before he explains what they are. For example the "select" attribute first appears on page 105 in an example describing the lang() function, without any explanation of what it is or how it should be used. It's not listed at all in the index except in relation to the "for-each" and "sort" elements. He has a nice list of string functions but not much explanation of what kinds of contexts they can be used in, and few examples. He doesn't really explain how "match" and "select" are used together, or how processing works hierarchically by jumping between xsl snippets. Like a lot of O'Reilly books it presumes a pretty sophisticated programming vocabulary (like what does "normalize" mean anyway?).

Some sections are quite useful however, and the fact that there are lots of examples is very helpful.