XML: The Complete Reference [Paperback]

Heather Williamson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Complete Reference | Publication Date: April 23, 2001

"Only in the abbreviation-laden world of high technology could three letters have such wide impact." CNET XML is one of the hottest Web development tools/languages - especially in e-commerce. XML (Extensible Markup Language), a tagbased language similar to HTML, is designed to structure data, rather than format it like HTML. XML allows for the exchange of data between companies, within a company, or within an application. XML is a Web standard touted as having the potential to revolutionize the way businesses exchange data. It not only allows companies to easily and cheaply conduct online transactions with their customers and partners, it also delivers sound, video and other data across the Web. XML is simple to learn and works over Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the underlying protocol of the Web. In comparison, CORBA, EJB, and COM require more extensive programming knowledge Nearly every company - including Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM - is building XML support into their products.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

XML holds promise for fields as diverse as data transfer, information modeling, and web deployment, so stating that any guide is "complete" will undoubtedly get the author in trouble. Williamson comes from a web background and clearly explains the "how to" of manipulating XML on the web. However, she fails to address the programming language's other myriad functions (e.g., as messaging syntax, in b2b applications, for application-to-application communication, with databases, etc.). Not recommended.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover

The Most In-Depth Guide to XML Available

Create simple to complex XML documents and build full-fledged Web applications using this one-stop resource. Covering a wide range of topics--from reviewing XML parsers and validators to using scripts and converting databases into XML documents--this all-inclusive reference shows you everything you need to work with this popular tag-based language. Learn to enhance text with either cascading or extensible style sheets, use schemas to improve functionality, select portions of a document using XLink and XPointer, and much more. Additionally, XML: The Complete Reference covers SMIL and Math--languages used for multimedia presentations and displaying mathematical equations. Thorough, useful, and comprehensive, this is the only XML book you'll need.

• Get an overview of related standards and requirements for using XML
• Create organized, well-formed XML document structures
• Identify attributes and add data to your XML documents
• Use schemas in XML applications to restrict values and create reports
• Discover where and when to use style sheets, including CSS and XSL
• Expand XML applications with XLinks, XPointers, and XQuery
• Learn how to change HTML to XHTML
• Manipulate XML with JavaScript, and use CGI to convert database information to an XML document

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 965 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies; 1st edition (April 23, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072127341
• ISBN-13: 978-0072127348
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,382,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great presentation of XML basics, September 30, 2002

By 

Vaibhav Gowadia (Columbia, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: XML: The Complete Reference (Paperback)

This book is very useful and well written. The topics covered include XML basics, DTD's, style sheets, XML schemas, XML Query, XHTML, SYMM and MIL. It describes each topic in detail and with examples. Some of the examples help understand the different error messages given by the validating parsers. Perhaps that is the part programmers are mostly interested in.

Topics like XML Query and RDF are out of date as of now (Sept 2002), due to new W3C specifications, but introduction provided in the book is still useful for getting started. I really like XML Query chapter because no other small introduction is available elsewhere as of now.

This book is an excellent choice to get started with XML. It has got all the basics and nice examples.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great reference book that should be on your shelf..., September 23, 2002

By 

Brian Yager "jazzman310" (Huntsville, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: XML: The Complete Reference (Paperback)

I found XML: The Complete Reference to be a worthy book to have in my library. You will not learn everything there is to know about XML in this book, but you will be able to understand it well enough to begin. I have used this book over and over to look up little things that need. It is sometimes dificult to find what you are looking foor. But I have put tabs in my book to help me. If you program in XML, you will use this book everyday. This is a must have!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good Training Manual and Basic Reference Guide, January 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: XML: The Complete Reference (Paperback)

We have been using this book as a Training manual and reference book for all of our classes in XML. It is very thorough and contains all the information anyone will need to be able to get started with XML programming. I think that MS Williamson has done a great job of putting together a lot of information in a book that can be used by people of different levels of knowledge and expertise.