Customer Reviews

XPath Kick Start: Navigating XML with XPath 1.0 and 2.0

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I am already familiar with XSLT and XPATH 1.0 so i found the initial 5 chapters kinda dumbed down. the 6th chapter is interesting on XLINK and Xpointer but only the basics are shown here i wished a few real world implentations were used and i wish they went into XQuery more but i guess that would be another book. starting from chapter 7-12 gets interesting with all the different new functions and types in Xpath 2.0. It was an overal easy read and good for updating your XPath skills or read the initial 5 chapters to get a better view on Xpath. I would at least have an introductory experience with XSLT before u read this book although they explain intro XSLT as they go on. SUMMARY: for an intermediate, start reading from chapter 6.

There is no question that XML is a leading technology for the description of data. Once data is stored, then the problem becomes how to access it, which is where Xpath is used. Databases can be complex, but the fundamental understanding of XML is not. Furthermore, understanding Xpath is also not complicated, made even easier by this book by Holzer.
Xpath is more than just a way to extract the contents of a node, it is a nearly complete language that allows you to move through an XML data tree, make decisions regarding what data to extract and even perform some basic processing. In this book you will experience easy to understand descriptions of:

*) The fundamental data types supported in Xpath
*) The fundamental operators in Xpath
*) Many of the functions defined in the Xpath library
*) How style sheets are used in conjunction with Xpath to extract and display the data

If you want to learn the purpose and used of Xpath, this book is an excellent place to begin.