Applied XML Solutions (Paperback)

~ Benoit Marchal (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

..concise, useful, and illuminating..with respect to its discussion on the practical issues associated with SOAP architecture and implementations Jeff Cromwell -- Dr Dobb's Journal, July 2001

Product Description

Applied XML Solutions presents a series of projects rather than a tutorial format. The projects follow a natural progression from simple to complex. Within each chapter, helpful sidebars highlight XML fundamentals necessary to understand the project in progress. This will save readers' time having to look to another source if they forget a key detail. The last project incorporates techniques discussed throughout the book. The author will illustrate alternative solutions wherever appropriate. Applied XML Solutions shows professional developers how to apply XML to a variety of real-world applications, including: XML as a scripting substitute, using RSS to syndicate content to multiple & non-traditional browsers such as WAP-enabled handheld devices, using XSLT to facilitate communication between incompatible systems, separating web content from web code, importing data from various file formats.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Sams (August 29, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672320541
• ISBN-13: 978-0672320545
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,005,763 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Benoit gets better..., October 4, 2000

By	bill blackmon (New York City) - See all my reviews

This book is an improvement over Marchals' excellent 'XML By Example'. The sample programs are longer, meatier and can quickly be converted for usage in your own projects. The most impressive thing about the author is that he actually answered my email when I had questions regarding the code, which is unusual among the authors of the endless series of boilerplate Java books, many of whom regurgiate previous books/website content and then disappear into the sunset so as not to be reached when mistakes and blatant oversights are found in their books and the CDs that accompany them.

The SAMS format of this book is superior to the Que format of the previous book. Despite the ever-changing face of XML, the book appears relevant and up-to-date. If you're a Java programmer interested in exactly what XML is useful for, this book is a good place to start.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for XML/Java developers, July 29, 2001

By	ZhongDan LAN (Newark, New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are already lots of 5 stars here and it seems unnecessary to vote another 5 stars. Anyway, I would like to give some personal feedback.

1)This book is short in length but rich in content.

Chapter 1 convers XML in a standalone java application, SAX parser is used in this chapter; chapter 2 shows a survex project using SAX parser and servlet; chapter 3 demonstrated how to use DTD, CSS within XML editor XMetal; chapter 4 covers XML publishing, same content can be published with different style sheets for HTML, WML and RSS; chapter 5 and chapter 6 describe the conversion between XML and EDI using xsl; chapter 7 is devoted to an e-Business project, using xsl and servlet; chapter 8 can be read after chapter 4, it is also devoted to publishing, with dynamically generated xml content; chapter 9 is devoted to a stock tracking project, which uses SOAP as the communication protocol, it can be read after chapter 7.

In a whole, this book covers:

a) XML parsers in chapter 1, 2, also java, servlet, design patterns Builder, Visitor.

b) XML editor in chapter 3, also CSS, DTD,

c) Publishing (XSLT) in chapter 4 and 8, also servlet.

d) XML and EDI in chapter 5 and 6, also XSLT.

e) e-Business: chapter 7 and 9, also servlet, SOAP.

2)This books is written for java developer, good understanding of java and servlet is required.

3)There is no chapter on JSP and XML, although there are application of XML with servlet and you can transfer some servlet into JSP; there is no chapter on JMS and XML neither, you may hope to find this kind of example in a JMS book.

4)This book is surpringly easy to use. I read it several times, from the beginning to the end. I tried EVERY EXAMPLE in the book, and every example works.

To be more honest, I only find one problem in the example (I just want to prove that I really tried every example): on page 81, third paragraph, first line, the author talks about how to chnage display style in XMetal:

Choose Tools, Editor Display Style

I found "Editor Display Style" in the menu "Format" instead of menu "Tools", so maybe we shuld replace "Tools" by "Format".

5)This book uses a JDBC database HypersonicSQL, and it is on the CD. So no preinstalled database is required.

6)The servlet container used in the book is jetty, the author provided batch file to use it without any difficulty. However, if you use Tomcat or Weblogic or jrun or another servlet engine, you need to configure it.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this if you want to learn fast!, February 12, 2001

By	John O'Dwyer "[e-mail]" (Galway Ireland) - See all my reviews

I would thoroughly recommend this book to anybody who is frustrated from the lack of sample solutions available in XML books they've looked at. For most of us, we learn by example, it's the intuitive way to learn new concepts yeah? Well the good thing about this book is that it does exactly that and more... it demonstrates basic to advanced XML solutions to everyday problems. I have purchased many XML books now at this stage, including Java and XML and I have to say that Benoit Marchal's is by far the best. Buy it if you want to learn how to apply your XML knowledge.

Oh, and it comes with a CD with all the projects on it which is V. handy... also it has a copy of XALAN, and a trial version of XMetaL (a GUI editor) plus many more.

All round money well spent.