XSLT Cookbook: Solutions and Examples for XML and XSLT Developers, 2nd Edition [Paperback]

Sal Mangano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 21, 2005

Forget those funky robot toys that were all the rage in the '80s, XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Transformations) is the ultimate transformer. This powerful language is expert at transforming XML documents into PDF files, HTML documents, JPEG files--virtually anything your heart desires. As useful as XSLT is, though, most people have a difficult time learning its many peculiarities. And now Version 2.0, while elegant and powerful, has only added to the confusion.

XSLT Cookbook, Second Edition wants to set the record straight. It helps you sharpen your programming skills and overall understanding of XSLT through a collection of detailed recipes. Each recipe breaks down a specific problem into manageable chunks, giving you an easy-to-grasp roadmap for integrating XSLT with your data and applications. No other XSLT book around employs this practical problem-solution-discussion format.

In addition to offering code recipes for solving everyday problems with XSLT 1.0, this new edition shows you how to leverage the improvements found in XSLT 2.0, such as how to simplify the string manipulation and date/time conversion processes. The book also covers XPath 2.0, a critical companion standard, as well as topics ranging from basic transformations to complex sorting and linking. It even explores extension functions on a variety of different XSLT processors and shows ways to combine multiple documents using XSLT. Code examples add a real-world dimension to each technique.

Whether you're just starting out in XSLT or looking for advanced techniques, you'll find the level of information you need in XSLT Cookbook, Second Edition.

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

About the Author

Sal Mangano has worked as a developer on Wall Street for 12 years, including work at the New York Stock Exchange and Morgan Stanley. He has a Master's degree in Computer Science from Polytechnic University and is currently working as an independent consultant, focused on financial applications of XML and related technologies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 776 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Second Edition edition (December 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596009747
• ISBN-13: 978-0596009748
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #401,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #51 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > XML

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.