Inside XML [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

by Steve Holzner (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Inside XML is an intelligent and easy-to-follow guide to today's proliferating XML standards. Aside from being a road map to the latest and greatest in what's on the horizon with XML, this book gives you what you need to know to be productive with existing XML tools right now.

The tour begins with an introduction to the XML used in real-world applications (like the Chemical Markup Language, CML, and the Vector Markup Language, VML [for graphics]). While many books give you the basics, this one excels at explaining the conventions of designing robust XML document types in detail. With dozens of short examples, you'll learn XML conventions thoroughly, including some of the best practices for creating readable, maintainable content. The author highlights certain lines of XML code, so it's easier to see what's important.

After 200 pages of in-depth material on how to design XML documents, the book turns to using XML in actual browsers (both in Netscape and Internet Explorer). This practical focus means that you get to explore available Microsoft tools and how they sometimes differ from official W3C standards.

Subsequent sections turn to related XML standards, like XLinks and XPointers. Each section lists Web links to the latest online documents, but the emphasis isn't on theory so much as on what you can do right now. You'll learn how to use Java with XML, including navigating the XML Document Object Model (DOM) using IBM's XML for Java (XML4J) package. The tutorial explaining the Simple API for XML (SAX) does a great job of explaining the advantages of this popular tool.

Final chapters delve into displaying XML with several existing standards, including XHTML (for Web browser content), VML (for drawing shapes), and the Resource Description Framework (RDF) for allowing XML-based content searching. Final sections look at combining XML with Perl and Java (through servlets and JSPs) and give a glimpse at wireless content created with the Wireless Markup Language (WML).

Suitable for any developer or IT manager who needs to understand and use XML, Inside XML provides an authoritative yet approachable source of information on a fast-changing set of standards that are almost sure to revolutionize computing over the next few years. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Comprehensive introduction to XML basics and tools
• Designing XML documents (including "well-formed" XML, tags and elements, and attributes and namespaces)
• Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
• Entities and attributes (including design documents)
• XML Schemas (using Internet Explorer)
• Introduction to JavaScript
• Using JavaScript with the XML Document Object Model (DOM)
• Cascading style sheets (CSS)
• Overview of basic Java programming
• Parsing XML with IBM's XML for Java (XML4J)
• Java and the Simple API for XML (SAX)
• XSL transformations (XSL style sheets and XSL formatting objects)
• XLinks and XPointers
• Introduction to XHTML
• The Resource Description Framework (RDF)
• The Microsoft Channel Definition Format (CDF)
• The Vector Markup Language (VML)
• Using XML with Java
• Perl and ASP on the server
• Quick introduciton to the Wireless Markup Language (WML)
• Reference to the XML 1.0 Specification

Product Description

The XML explosion hardly needs any introduction-it's everywhere and there just seems to be no end to what can be done with XML. While writing to the W3C standards, and keeping up with the pace for corporate implementation, you, the programmer or web developer, will need a comprehensive guide to get you started and show you what XML and its related technologies can do. A thorough guide is imperative to success because you will need to know and understand the full scope of XML from day one in order to work with it successfully. With your time constraints and impossible project schedules, you need a comprehensive guide that fulfills your needs in one complete book. Inside XML is an anchor book that covers both the Microsoft and non-Microsoft approach to XML programming. It covers in detail the hot aspects of XML; such as, DTD's vs. XML Schemas, CSS, XSL, XSLT, Xlinks, Xpointers, XHTML, RDF, CDF, parsing XML in Perl and Java, and much more.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1152 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; illustrated edition edition (November 14, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735710201
• ISBN-13: 978-0735710207
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #997,254 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, Well Organized, Great value for money, December 16, 2000

By	Masood M. Khan (American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, Sharjah United Arab Emirates) - See all my reviews

Inside XML by Steven Holzner is probably the most comprehensive book written on XML so far. Each of the one thousand and fifty nine pages (excluding index) contains judicious and practical information for anyone willing to learn almost everything about XML. The logical organization of knowledge and adroit arrangement of information in the book make reading a joy. Can this be the only book you need to read about XML? I think yes.

XML indeed is the future of business and communication on the net. Many analysts believe that despite its wonderful portability and universal compatibility, XML has yet to achieve practitioners' acceptance and approbation. XML standards have not been practiced as ubiquitously as analysts had expected. List of major reasons for its slow advance includes lack of browser support and functional inconsistencies of currently available XML parsers. I always believed that "lack of quality literature on XML" also contributed to XML's limited success. "Inside XML" has definitely eliminated this particular reason from my list of reasons for XML's slow progress.

Author has discussed CSS, DOM and SAX parsers, XSL, XHTML, RDF and CDF with the help of relevant and interesting examples. This was missing in some of the recent books on XML. I recently read three other books on XML including Benoit Marchal's XML by example and John Simpson's Just XML. I found Inside XML more useful as it covers a much broader range of topics and technologies than those covered elsewhere. Important topics such as server-side XML are covered in a way that an instructor can develop instructional plans based on this coverage. A detailed discussion on Microsoft specific technologies has made this book a great resource for programmers and developers too. Inside XML can be used to develop certification material. Material presented in this book can also be used for developing a one-semester senior level course on XML technologies.

This book has a high information-value to price ratio and I can confidently recommend the book to anyone interested in practicing XML for the real world. Students, developers and instructors can equally benefit from the material presented in this book.

51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting book, December 10, 2000

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

This book is exciting. It suits xml novices and experts.

What's good in this book:

1. Both for beginners and advanced. More advanced than <<XML by example>> and <<Java and XML>, easier to read and more practical than <<Professional XML>>.

2. Both microsoft and non microsoft.

3. XML schemas, it's quite new and it's well explained in the book.

4. Java and DOM, Java and SAX. More advanced than <<Java and XML>>.

5. It is good to introduce XHTML, it is a bridge between HTML and XML and is becoming popular.

6. Introductions to different special XML Markup Language.

7. Infosets and Canonical XML (in Chapter 1).

Some opinions:

Presentation can be improved, code can be made downloadable, can have more on a) XML for deplayment (of JSP, EJB, J2EE, ...), b) SOAP, c) XSP, d) WML and e) Java with JSP, ASP

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Its a real appetizer, February 8, 2001

By	Dino Seelig (The Netherlands) - See all my reviews

Inside XML Inside XML, written by Steven Holzner, is an excellent start for a beginning web programmer as well for an experienced web site developer. The author has succeeded in explaining the variety of subjects concerning XML in a very understandable way. He has achieved this by presenting very complex items in such a way that the items become very simple to understand. The book also provides useful examples and references to sites for more information on the subjects. The book delivers a complete overview and covers the following items: DTDs, XML schemas, client-side XML handling using DOM and JavaScript, server-side handling using DOM, SAX and Java. Related items like XSL, XSLT, VML, SMIL, HTML+TIME, XHTML, RDF, CDF are discussed. Last but not least the book describes how to combine CSS with XHTML/XML. The book is very usable for creating XML courseware, for beginning and experienced web developers. I personally enjoyed the reading of this book, and felt that my time and money was well spent. The book is complete. Readers get a helicopter view of the sprawling XML subject, and leave the book with the knowledge they need to start using XML, and references to site where they can continue learning. It's a real appetizer.