XSLT Cookbook [Paperback]

Sal Mangano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2002

Critical for converting XML documents, and extremely versatile, the XSLT language nevertheless has complexities that can be daunting. The XSLT Cookbook is a collection of hundreds of solutions to problems that Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) developers regularly face. The recipes range from simple string-manipulation and mathematical processing to more complex topics like extending XSLT, testing and debugging XSLT stylesheets, and graphics creation with SVG. Recipes can be run directly or tweaked to fit your particular application's needs more precisely.

Each recipe walks through a problem and a solution, with explanations of the choices made and techniques used in creating that solution, and many recipes include alternate solutions and explore issues like convenience and performance. Topics covered include:

• String manipulation
• Mathematical processing
• Date and time handling
• Interactions between calendar systems
• Selecting content in source documents
• Efficient tree-manipulation
• Conversions from XML to plain text
• Tweaking XML documents with stylesheets
• Using XSLT to query XML documents
• Generating HTML with XSLT
• Creating charts and graphs with SVG and XSLT
• Generating C and XSLT code using XSLT
• Processing Visio documents in XSLT
• Working with XML Topic Maps (XTM)
• Using XSLT to create SOAP documentation from WSDL
• Extending XSLT with additional functions
• Embedding XSLT in other processing
• Testing and debugging XSLT stylesheets
• Creating generic XSLT processors which work on many XML vocabularies

The XSLT Cookbook provides an ideal companion both for developers still figuring out XSLT's template-based approach who want to learn by example, and for developers who know XSLT and want a collection of quickly reusable recipes. XSLT frequently offers a number of ways to perform a transformation, and the best solution may not always be the most straightforward. The recipes in this Cookbook demonstrate and explain XSLT's template-based logic, a frequent stumbling block for developers new to XSLT. Among the variety of XSLT books now available, none has the explicit solution-oriented approach of this Cookbook.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...this book is a powerful reference work. The problems tackled are well chosen, the solutions elegant and the explanations carefully and clearly explained." - Rick Stones, Cvu, August 2003

About the Author

Sal Mangano has been developing software for over 12 years and has worked on many mission-critical applications, especially in the area of financial-trading applications. Unlike many XML/XSLT developers, he did not approach the technology from the standpoint of the Internet and Web development but rather from the broader need for a general-purpose, data-transformation framework. This experience has given him a unique perspective that has influenced many of the recipes in his book, the XSLT Cookbook. Sal has a Master's degree in Computer Science from Polytechnic University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 670 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (December 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596003722
• ISBN-13: 978-0596003722
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,465,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I fell in love with science at a very young age but got hooked on computers and mathematics only much later. I have had most of my professional experience programming complex trading systems in C++ but have more of a personal passion for AI, Genetic Algorithms, pure Computer Science and advanced software development paradigms and certain areas of theoretical math (although my ability on the mathematical side is not quite on par with my passion).

My two books XSLT Cookbook and Mathematica Cookbook are about very different technologies but there is a common theme that runs through both XSLT and Mathematica - pattern matching and transformation. This is one of the most powerful paradigms in computer science.

I like the cookbook format because word for word, cookbooks are the most useful of all technical books. Cookbooks teach by example and that is how people learn. Cookbooks are about getting things done.

Both XSLT and Mathematica are sort off the beaten path type languages and that tells you a bit about me.

XSLT is a very particle skill to have if you find yourself needing the deal with XML a lot. If you manipulate XML using straight DOM programming you are really doing way to much work in many cases. Give XSLT a try.

Mathematica is probably the single most useful system there is for experimental use of a computer. If you work in the IT industry chance are slim you will ever need Mathematica skills. BUT, if you like to tinker with ideas and data, if you like to explore mathematical and scientific concepts, if you want to know how it feels to discover beauty in a few lines of code THEN you really ought to give Mathematica a try. This used to be an expensive proposition but Wolfram has a fully functional HOME Edition of Mathematica. At about $300 it is probably the single best software investment you will ever make. If you are a student, it is even less.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for people who know XSLT, October 10, 2003

By 

Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: XSLT Cookbook (Paperback)

Some other reviews have said that this is not a book for beginners, which is true. You need to understand the mechanics of XSLT first to get the most out of the book. That's not the real value, however. This book is great because it shows you how to write XSLT well. This is a value that a simple reference will not provide.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good XSLT reference for non-beginners, March 8, 2003

By 

N. Tulsian "Movie Lover" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: XSLT Cookbook (Paperback)

The book is an excellent practical hands-on reference for
creating solutions in the XML-XSL Transformation domain.

It covers areas from simple string operations to SVG generation
to extending XSLT with Perl, JavaScript and Java.

The author Sal Mangano has good working examples with detailed
descriptions of the code. This makes experimenting with new
code relatively painless.

Being an experienced XSLT developer I found the book easy to
follow. However people new to the concept of XML transformations
would do well to get a basic understanding of the matter before
diving into building solutions using this book.

Having a copy of the XSLT Cookbook during the development
phase of the LCRA.org website project would have reduced the
time needed to craft a good sustainable solution, and reduced
the amount of code I had to redesign to be modular and flexible.

An example is the recommendation : "Prefer 'selecting' and
'matching' over 'filtering'" pg 114, para 3. This allows for
flexible XML schemas.

A companion CD with working example code and a searchable
text of the book on the CD would have been appreciated.
The website at Oreilly does have a downloadable zip file
of the examples.

All in all well worth the $40.00 price of the book,

Neeraj

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great reference for XSLT solutions, March 25, 2003

By 

Michael Marr - See all my reviews

This review is from: XSLT Cookbook (Paperback)

The XSLT Cookbook offers more than one hundred code solutions to common XSLT problems. The covered topics range from string operations, handling dates and numbers to converting xml to various formats, like text, HTML or SVG.
The author also included some speciality solutions for working with Visio and Excel documents or generating XTM Topic Maps. The last chapters of the book cover some more advanced topic, like extending XSLT and testing stylesheets.
As it is a Cookbook, the beef of this book are the code examples. All examples I tested so far are of outstanding quality and work great. For the most problems you will encounter when writing stylesheets, this book offers an example. Just look it up and you are there.
The very high quality of this book and it's code examples is impressive. The author Sal Mangano sure put a lot of work and research into this book. And the expertise of Jeni Tennison, as technical reviewer, and Simon St.Laurent, as editor, sure were an important factor in achieving this quality standard.

If you are an absolute beginner, you probably should start with a more tutorial style book, but as soon as you have some basic knowledge of XSLT, this book is a great reference for XSLT solutions.