XML in a Nutshell, Third Edition (Paperback)

by Elliotte Rusty Harold (Author), W. Scott Means (Author)
Key Phrases: schema language, southern corn bread, document grammar, Alan Turing, Character Sets Table, Other Unicode Blocks (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
If you're a developer working with XML, you know there's a lot to know about XML, and the XML space is evolving almost moment by moment. But you don't need to commit every XML syntax, API, or XSLT transformation to memory; you only need to know where to find it. And if it's a detail that has to do with XML or its companion standards, you'll find it--clear, concise, useful, and well-organized--in the updated third edition of XML in a Nutshell.

With XML in a Nutshell beside your keyboard, you'll be able to:
Quick-reference syntax rules and usage examples for the core
XML technologies, including XML, DTDs, Xpath, XSLT, SAX, and DOM
Develop an understanding of well-formed XML, DTDs, namespaces, Unicode, and W3C XML Schema
Gain a working knowledge of key technologies used for narrative XML documents such as web pages, books, and articles technologies like XSLT, Xpath, Xlink, Xpointer, CSS, and XSL-FO
Build data-intensive XML applications
Understand the tools and APIs necessary to build data-intensive XML applications and process XML documents, including the event-based Simple API for XML (SAX2) and the tree-oriented Document Object Model (DOM)

This powerful new edition is the comprehensive XML reference. Serious users of XML will find coverage on just about everything they need, from fundamental syntax rules, to details of DTD and XML Schema creation, to XSLT transformations, to APIs used for processing XML documents. XML in a Nutshell also covers XML 1.1, as well as updates to SAX2 and DOM Level 3 coverage. If you need explanation of how a technology works, or just need to quickly find the precise syntax for a particular piece, XML in a Nutshell puts the information at your fingertips.

Simply put, XML in a Nutshell is the critical, must-have reference for any XML developer.

About the Author
Elliotte Rusty Harold is an adjunct professor of computer science at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, New York, where he lectures on object-oriented programming and XML. His Cafe con Leche Web site has become one of the most popular sites for information on XML. In addition, he is the author and coauthor of numerous books, the most recent of which are "The XML Bible" (John Wiley & Sons, 2001) and "XML in a Nutshell" (O'Reilly, 2002).
0321150406AB08272003

Means began his career as a software developer with Microsoft in 1988, joining the company at the age of 17. He is currently serving as President and CEO of Enterprise Web Machines, a South Carolina-based Internet software product and services company.

Product Details

• Paperback: 600 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; 3 edition (September 23, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596007647
• ISBN-13: 978-0596007645
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #116,385 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Covers almost every major XML standard, November 6, 2004

By	Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a combination field guide and terse standards reference for XML. It covers an amazing variety of XML standards. From the fundamentals of XML, through the document standards, and into transformation technologies like XSLT. Standards include; XML, XPath, XLink, XSLT, XSL-FO, XML Schema, DTDs, among others. The book also cover some standards that use XML, like SAX and DOM.

The book is fairly high level. It assumes that you know the basics and need a complete reference for the technologies. This is that case with all of the Nutshell books, but given the amount of technologies this books cover, the coverage is fairly terse.

The organization of the book is great. There are only a few illustrations and they are used effectively. A solid reference for anyone who works with XML technologies on a daily basis. Highly recommended.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A reference useful for a limited audience among those who already know XML basics, July 31, 2006

By	Christopher Culver - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

O'Reilly's XML IN A NUTSHELL is, like all entries in the Nutshell series, a desktop quick reference. It provides concise information about nearly all matters of XML, and is split into roughly four parts. The first introduces XML, the concept of tags, well-formedness, Unicode, DTD's and schemas, namespaces, and so forth. The second provides an overview for the many formats that are built upon XML, such as XHTML, XSL:FO, Docbook, etc., and technologies that plug-in into XML, namely XSLT, XPath, XLinks, XPointers, XInclude, and CSS. The fourth covers DOM and SAX, the APIs for dealing with XML. Finally, the book ends with a "Reference section" for various technologies covered earlier in the book, structured much like O'Reilly's pocket guides. I found the Reference section somewhat inconvenient, it causes flipping back and forth when each section could have been simply integrated with the previous discussion of the relevant technology earlier in the book. Furthermore, the book ends with a long series of Unicode character tables, which are of limited utility, as they cover only a portion of Unicode, which has already expanded in the time since, and these tables simply bloat the book a little.

This third edition is especially admirable for its advocation of schemas, whereas many other XHTML publications would mention only DTDs.

XML IN A NUTSHELL is emphatically not a tutorial for XML, in spite of the friendly introduction to the markup language that opens the book. For each of the technologies mentioned herein, you'll want a separate book. For XPath especially, O'Reilly's XPATH AND XPOINTER is worth getting. XML IN A NUTSHELL instead provides only a quick reference for matters the reader is already acquainted with. Now, much of this quick reference information can be freely had on the Web. I'd recommend the book only to those who are fortunate enough to have someone else cover their book expenses, or can get it from their library, or those who simply adore print documentation.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Loaded with info but needs better editing/organization, March 4, 2005

By	Aramaki (GA) - See all my reviews

They might as well take out the first half of the book at trying to teach beginners XML. The reason being that the writing style is confusing, full of long run-on sentences, with few to no examples for demonstration. As a reference book, this is probably a flawless companion. And it does say that it's intended for experienced developers. The tutorial chapters serve well as reviews and tips if the person already knows some XML. Also, make sure you check the book's web site, it has a long errata list, so get ready to correct those errors. If you're a beginner to XML, this isn't the book to start out with. I recommend "Beginning XML - 3rd Edition" by Wrox Press as your first XML book.