XML Specification Guide [Paperback]

Ian S. Graham (Author), Liam Quin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 25, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0471327530 | ISBN-13: 978-0471327530 | Edition: 1

Get inside XML, one of the Web's most important technologies, with this complete and annotated specification guide. XML Specification Guide Bestselling authors Ian Graham and Liam Quin provide the technical reference for XML, one of the most important new technologies for Web development. Whether you are a programmer who develops for the Web, intranets, or extranets; a database programmer who needs to upgrade your system; or a Webmaster who wants to keep your site competitive, this book provides you with the information you need to master all the XML concepts, rules, and programming techniques. Beyond comprehensive coverage of the XML specification, readers will find hands-on guidance to the latest advancements that make XML the most powerful Web language in a world that is increasingly Web-based. Inside experts Graham and Quin provide you with:
* A complete explanation of XML structure, syntax, and rules, built around detailed examples
* A comprehensive specification guide to XML, annotated with helpful clarifications, background material, and illustrative examples
* In-depth coverage of namespaces and schemas
* A detailed discussion of the Unicode character sets and their relationship to XML
* A detailed glossary of important XML terms
* A quick-reference guide to XML features, with illustrated examples of how they differ from HTML
On the companion Web site you'll find:
* Technical tables for Web developers
* Annotated versions of XML grammar
* Valuable interactive tools for exploring the specification

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In XML Specification Guide, authors Ian S. Graham and Liam Quin don't attempt to reinvent the wheel by teaching XML in their own words. Instead, they present the actual 1.0 specification from the World Wide Web Consortium and enhance it with useful background information, definitions, and reference tables.

The book begins with a "bootstrap" tutorial that examines basic XML documents and offers an overview of Document Type Definitions (DTD). This section leads the reader through discussions of entities, DTD subsets, tokenized attribute types, CDATA, and string normalization--all of the tongue-twisting terms that make up the heart of XML. Plenty of code snippets illustrate the concepts, but the writing is aimed at a developer-level audience.

The second part of the book is the XML specification itself, buttressed with inserted notes, annotations, and a limited number of examples. Since you're reading from the actual standard, you can rest assured that you're getting the instruction right from the source.

The third section of the book presents a series of additional technical appendices that the authors feel are important. These include style issues, character sets, comparisons between HTML and XML, a discussion of schemas versus DTDs, and a glossary. Augmented by a companion Web site, this is a fine resource for any Web developer's desk. --Stephen W. Plain

From Library Journal

This manual is "for developersAthat is, people who are or will be designing XML applications, or writing software that will process XML." Some of the areas covered by Graham and Quin are the basic XML document, designing your own document type declarations (DTDs), entities and parameters, notation, a lengthy discussion of the formal XML specification by the w3.org, and the relationship among XML, HTML, and SGML. For more advanced computer collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 431 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (January 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471327530
• ISBN-13: 978-0471327530
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,155,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very clear, precise, and accurate book on XML specificatio, October 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: XML Specification Guide (Paperback)

I like this book very much. I have gone through this book cover to cover, and have found no technical errors or typos of any kind. The definitions and explanations are very precise. The discussions on Entities, Notations, Processing instructions, and many other complex topics are very precise and clear. The author has done a very careful job at writing this book. Most of the red computer Wiley books are embarrassingly full of technical errors and errata. This book is an exception. Anyone doing serious work with XML needs a clear, precise and accurate book like this. There is no shortcut to learning and clearly understanding the finer points of XML specifications. Actually, reading the first 100 pages of this book (Part I) is the closest shortcut to understand even those subtle details of XML specifications, which are needed to write serious XML applications.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars XML pure, May 8, 2000

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: XML Specification Guide (Paperback)

Clear, precise, pure, systematic. Imagine an ice mountain in a cold, blue ocean. That same clarity for XML arises in your mind, when you read this book. (Still, don't forget "The XML Handbook", if you want to know, how to apply XML in business applications :-)

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only possible reference for XML, April 12, 2001

By 

"ugol" - See all my reviews

This review is from: XML Specification Guide (Paperback)

This is the only possible reference for XML. You will not find here XSL, XLink, etc., but you will find an help to understand the XML specification itself (with the annotation of one of the authors), and an 'hard' tutorial to go in depth in the bare XMl language. If you had still doubts after reading other XML titles (is it possible to represent this, to represent that, how to model this, can the DTD do that, etc.) you have absolutely no choice. Not for newbies.