Real World XML (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Steve Holzner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0735712867 | ISBN-13: 978-0735712867 | Edition: 2

Steven Holzner's friendly, easy-to-read style has turned this book (formerly known as Inside XML) into the leading reference on XML. Unlike other XML books, this one is packed with hundreds of real-world examples, fully tested and ready to use!

Holzner teaches you XML like no other author can, covering every major XML topic today and detailing the ways XML is used now--connecting XML to databases (both locally and on web servers), stying XML for viewing in today's web browsers, reading and parsing XML documents in browsers, writing and using XML schemas, creating graphical XML browsers, working with the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and a great deal more. Real World XML is designed to be the standard in XML coverage--more complete, and more accessible, than any other.

"The author's approach is definitely bottom up, written in a highly personable tone. He makes efficient use of example code, which sets this book apart from many I have read in the past. His examples bring to life the code without overwhelming the reader, and he does not present any examples for which the reader has not been prepared. In addition, no prior knowledge of XML is assumed. As such, this is an excellent book for both beginners and intermediate level web designers and programmers. Experts, too, will find this book of value, due to its emphasis on real world applicability. Overall, this book will benefit all web developers and programmers, with a special emphasis on beginner and intermediate developers."--Donna A. Dulo, MS, MA, Senior Systems Engineer, U.S. Department of Defense

"This book will provide a brilliant basis for anyone wishing to keep up to speed with the new XML developments."--Mr. Andrew Madden, Department of Computer Science, University of Wales

"I found this book's strengths to be: its exhaustive specification reference for the conscientious developer; access to the official specs, which is key; the wide variety of choices provided for all aspects of XML; several alternatives provided for each editor, browser, parser, stylesheet transform engine, and programming language; and working examples that show the power of the tools used."--Jaime Ryan, Software Developer/Documentation Manager, Blue Titan Software

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Inside XML is an intelligent and easy-to-follow guide to today's proliferating XML standards. Aside from being a road map to the latest and greatest in what's on the horizon with XML, this book gives you what you need to know to be productive with existing XML tools right now.

The tour begins with an introduction to the XML used in real-world applications (like the Chemical Markup Language, CML, and the Vector Markup Language, VML [for graphics]). While many books give you the basics, this one excels at explaining the conventions of designing robust XML document types in detail. With dozens of short examples, you'll learn XML conventions thoroughly, including some of the best practices for creating readable, maintainable content. The author highlights certain lines of XML code, so it's easier to see what's important.

After 200 pages of in-depth material on how to design XML documents, the book turns to using XML in actual browsers (both in Netscape and Internet Explorer). This practical focus means that you get to explore available Microsoft tools and how they sometimes differ from official W3C standards.

Subsequent sections turn to related XML standards, like XLinks and XPointers. Each section lists Web links to the latest online documents, but the emphasis isn't on theory so much as on what you can do right now. You'll learn how to use Java with XML, including navigating the XML Document Object Model (DOM) using IBM's XML for Java (XML4J) package. The tutorial explaining the Simple API for XML (SAX) does a great job of explaining the advantages of this popular tool.

Final chapters delve into displaying XML with several existing standards, including XHTML (for Web browser content), VML (for drawing shapes), and the Resource Description Framework (RDF) for allowing XML-based content searching. Final sections look at combining XML with Perl and Java (through servlets and JSPs) and give a glimpse at wireless content created with the Wireless Markup Language (WML).

Suitable for any developer or IT manager who needs to understand and use XML, Inside XML provides an authoritative yet approachable source of information on a fast-changing set of standards that are almost sure to revolutionize computing over the next few years. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Comprehensive introduction to XML basics and tools
• Designing XML documents (including "well-formed" XML, tags and elements, and attributes and namespaces)
• Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
• Entities and attributes (including design documents)
• XML Schemas (using Internet Explorer)
• Introduction to JavaScript
• Using JavaScript with the XML Document Object Model (DOM)
• Cascading style sheets (CSS)
• Overview of basic Java programming
• Parsing XML with IBM's XML for Java (XML4J)
• Java and the Simple API for XML (SAX)
• XSL transformations (XSL style sheets and XSL formatting objects)
• XLinks and XPointers
• Introduction to XHTML
• The Resource Description Framework (RDF)
• The Microsoft Channel Definition Format (CDF)
• The Vector Markup Language (VML)
• Using XML with Java
• Perl and ASP on the server
• Quick introduciton to the Wireless Markup Language (WML)
• Reference to the XML 1.0 Specification

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

It was our goal in publishing this book to provide a book that is both comprehensive and accessible - as possible for a single book on XML can be. You shouldn't need any other book at this scope and level because this book brings you the most popular and important implementations out there today. Full of hands-on practical solutions, this book is full of examples and tested code ready to be used.

XML is an exciting technology and the author has worked hard to capture in this book the passion and artistry found with XML. We are committed to this book and will continue to work hard in making it the best resource available to you. Please help us in our goal and let us know what you think by emailing us at [e-mail] --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 1200 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; 2 edition (January 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735712867
• ISBN-13: 978-0735712867
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #704,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #91 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > XML

More About the Author

Steven Holzner is an award-winning author who has written extensively on Ajax and JavaScript. With over 100 titles published, he's sold over a million copies of his books and been translated into 16 languages. As a former faculty member of MIT and Cornell, he teaches corporate seminars around the country.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, Well Organized, Great value for money, December 16, 2000

By 

Masood M. Khan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inside XML (Inside (New Riders)) (Paperback)

Inside XML by Steven Holzner is probably the most comprehensive book written on XML so far. Each of the one thousand and fifty nine pages (excluding index) contains judicious and practical information for anyone willing to learn almost everything about XML. The logical organization of knowledge and adroit arrangement of information in the book make reading a joy. Can this be the only book you need to read about XML? I think yes.

XML indeed is the future of business and communication on the net. Many analysts believe that despite its wonderful portability and universal compatibility, XML has yet to achieve practitioners' acceptance and approbation. XML standards have not been practiced as ubiquitously as analysts had expected. List of major reasons for its slow advance includes lack of browser support and functional inconsistencies of currently available XML parsers. I always believed that "lack of quality literature on XML" also contributed to XML's limited success. "Inside XML" has definitely eliminated this particular reason from my list of reasons for XML's slow progress.

Author has discussed CSS, DOM and SAX parsers, XSL, XHTML, RDF and CDF with the help of relevant and interesting examples. This was missing in some of the recent books on XML. I recently read three other books on XML including Benoit Marchal's XML by example and John Simpson's Just XML. I found Inside XML more useful as it covers a much broader range of topics and technologies than those covered elsewhere. Important topics such as server-side XML are covered in a way that an instructor can develop instructional plans based on this coverage. A detailed discussion on Microsoft specific technologies has made this book a great resource for programmers and developers too. Inside XML can be used to develop certification material. Material presented in this book can also be used for developing a one-semester senior level course on XML technologies.

This book has a high information-value to price ratio and I can confidently recommend the book to anyone interested in practicing XML for the real world. Students, developers and instructors can equally benefit from the material presented in this book.

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting book, December 10, 2000

By 

ZhongDan LAN (Newark, New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inside XML (Inside (New Riders)) (Paperback)

This book is exciting. It suits xml novices and experts.

What's good in this book:

1. Both for beginners and advanced. More advanced than <<XML by example>> and <<Java and XML>, easier to read and more practical than <<Professional XML>>.

2. Both microsoft and non microsoft.

3. XML schemas, it's quite new and it's well explained in the book.

4. Java and DOM, Java and SAX. More advanced than <<Java and XML>>.

5. It is good to introduce XHTML, it is a bridge between HTML and XML and is becoming popular.

6. Introductions to different special XML Markup Language.

7. Infosets and Canonical XML (in Chapter 1).

Some opinions:

Presentation can be improved, code can be made downloadable, can have more on a) XML for deplayment (of JSP, EJB, J2EE, ...), b) SOAP, c) XSP, d) WML and e) Java with JSP, ASP

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Its a real appetizer, February 8, 2001

By 

Dino Seelig (The Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inside XML (Inside (New Riders)) (Paperback)

Inside XML Inside XML, written by Steven Holzner, is an excellent start for a beginning web programmer as well for an experienced web site developer. The author has succeeded in explaining the variety of subjects concerning XML in a very understandable way. He has achieved this by presenting very complex items in such a way that the items become very simple to understand. The book also provides useful examples and references to sites for more information on the subjects. The book delivers a complete overview and covers the following items: DTDs, XML schemas, client-side XML handling using DOM and JavaScript, server-side handling using DOM, SAX and Java. Related items like XSL, XSLT, VML, SMIL, HTML+TIME, XHTML, RDF, CDF are discussed. Last but not least the book describes how to combine CSS with XHTML/XML. The book is very usable for creating XML courseware, for beginning and experienced web developers. I personally enjoyed the reading of this book, and felt that my time and money was well spent. The book is complete. Readers get a helicopter view of the sprawling XML subject, and leave the book with the knowledge they need to start using XML, and references to site where they can continue learning. It's a real appetizer.