.NET and XML (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

If you're seeking ways to build network-based applications or XML-based web services, Microsoft provides most of the tools you'll need. XML is integrated into the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET, but if you want to get a grasp on how .NET and XML actually work together, that's a different story. With .NET & XML, you can get under the hood to see how the .NET Framework implements XML, giving you the skills to write understandable XML-based code that interoperates with code written with other tools, and even other languages. .NET & XML starts by introducing XML and the .NET Framework, and then teaches you how to read and write XML before moving on to complex methods for manipulating, navigating, transforming, and constraining it. As you move from chapter to chapter, you'll absorb increasingly complex information until you have enough knowledge to successfully program your own XML-based applications. This tutorial also contains a quick reference to the API, plus various useful appendices.

About the Author

Niel M. Bornstein, with over ten years' experience in software development, has worked in diverse areas such as corporate information systems, client-server application development, and web-hosted applications. Clear and engaging, Niel is a frequent contributor to xml.com, an affiliate site of the O'Reilly Network.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596003978
• ISBN-13: 978-0596003975
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #675,430 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid introduction with a light reference section, March 13, 2004

By	Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book has probably all you need to know about reading, writing, formatting and sending XML over the wire with C#. Standout chapters for me were chapters seven, on XSLT, and nine, on web services. That being said all of the non-reference chapters were evenly written, easy reads and neither rat hole nor pander to the reader. The code samples are numerous but they are hilighted with bold to emphasizes the portions that a critical to the narrative.

C# is the only imperative language covered in the book even though most .NET authors cover both C# and VB.NET. In the introduction the author calls C# the central language of .NET and says it's the best language for the job. I don't have big issues about that but other potential .NET readers may, especially considering the popularity of VB.NET. Personally I prefer when the author chooses one language and then leaves the other to the site or the CD. I think VB.NET example code fragments on the O'Reilly site probably would have been a safer bet.

It's this one language approach in the dual language .NET environment that kicks the rating from five down to four.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hardly a Java book!, April 13, 2006

By	BlueHooker (Reston, VA United States) - See all my reviews

A careful reader would have noticed the "using" keyword in the code sample, and realized that this is C#, not Java. I found this book a good supplement to the MSDN; its well-conceived examples got me off to a good start in this area.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very well written and well thought out, February 7, 2004

By	ueberhund "ueberhund" (Salt Lake City, UT United States) - See all my reviews

Anyone who has spent even a little time with .NET knows that XML is at the core of many of the libraries. When performing a query with ADO.NET, it's as easy to return the results as a DataSet as it is to return it as XML. This book realizes the core use of XML to .NET and discusses many of the various options developers have in handling XML.

The book covers a few main points: how to read XML, how to write XML, how to transform XML (via XSLT), and various data manipulations. Each of these points, in turn, opens up various different issues which are discussed at length (like constraining XML via an XSD or how to read a non-XML document into XML). Much of the discussion contained some of the best instruction related to XML and .NET that I have seen. The final section of the book contains various reference chapters related to the XML namespaces (think of the reference section in the Nutshell series and you'll have a pretty good idea of what to expect).

All in all, this is a very well written and well thought out discussion on the uses of XML in .NET. Not only will this book further your understanding of how to use .NET and XML together, but it will also help you gain insight into perhaps new uses for XML in your applications. I would recommend looking through this book before you begin your next .NET application.