Mastering XSLT (Paperback)

~ (Author) "THE EXTENSIBLE STYLESHEET LANGUAGE (XSL) was first introduced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1999..." (more)
Key Phrases: literal result elements, given current node, esheet element, All Amounts, General Accounts, Ridgewood Drive (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) is a powerful tool for transforming XML to other formats, such as HTML and PDF. It is at the heart of most XML applications and is a notoriously difficult language to understand. Mastering XSLT offers experienced XML developers comprehensive how-to information, plus an in-depth XSLT reference, including XPath. The book has a special emphasis on converting XML to HTML, a major application of XSLT. A entire section of the book focuses on specific implementation issues, including dealing with different kinds of non-XML output, such as special characters and math computations. Author Chuck White is a communications professional who has done extensive work for numerous Fortune 500 companies. He is President and Chief Creative Officer of The Tumeric Partnership, an integrated marketing communications firm, and is the lead author of Mastering XML, Premium Edition from Sybex. He is also webmaster for Javertising, a popular website for advertising and web development professionals.

From the Back Cover

The Implementation Details You Need

XSLT’s capabilities and uses are so extensive that many books get bogged down in the complex W3C specification and provide little in the way of practical, real-world instruction. Mastering XSLT is a fundamentally different kind of book. Here you’ll find quick, efficient introductions to the key concepts, written for people who know their XML, and then the really good stuff: detailed instructions that will help you meet your immediate document-transformation challenges and move on to new ones. It’s the most effective way to get what you need out of XSLT, whether your application is simple or complex, conventional or ground-breaking.

Coverage includes:

• Understanding the XSLT data model
• Working with expressions
• Using variables and parameters in XSLT
• Using functions
• Managing output
• Using looping, iteration, and repetition
• Grouping and indexing
• Managing multiple documents
• Sorting and numbering
• Generating documentation and comments
• Using XSLT extensions
• Generating HTML
• Working with forms
• Outputting strings and special characters
• Generating RTF and other non-XML markup
• Generating RTF and other non-XML markup

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1006 pages
• Publisher: Sybex; 1st edition (June 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0782140947
• ISBN-13: 978-0782140941
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.6 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,324,795 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very, very comprehensive, March 25, 2003

By	"msukan" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

I can see where the author of the previous review is coming from. I agree that this book is not a good starting point for beginners. The writing consists of dialog and narration in long paragraphs compared to other computer books that have a lot of screenshots, diagrams and bullet points for fast reading and organization (which I generally prefer).

However, if you have programming background and some experience with HTML/XML you won't find another book with as many detailed examples and as thorough explanations. I am currently developing some XSLT templates for a project in my company and this book has proven to be a great source of ideas and techniques for solving a wide range of uncommon problems that other books do not cover.

Highly recommended for experienced users to be used as a thorough reference.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I finally understand XSLT, May 11, 2004

By	Arnold Schmidt (Berlin, Germany) - See all my reviews

Okay, I suppose the weenies who say you have to know XML to understand this book are right. So, yeah, if you don't know XML, go to remedial school and learn it. Maybe I'm being kind of tough, but the truth is, if you're a Java programmer, or a C programmer, or a Javaascript programmer, this author knows how to talk to you. He tells you how XSL is different than OOO programming. And the differences are huge. No simple iterations and loops here, no dynamic variables, no anything you're used to, and this author explains it all in a way that makes sense. This book is absolutely the most comprehensive beginner-to-advanced-level book on XSL I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. If you want straight reference, go to Michael Kay's book. If you want to actually learn the language, this is your book.

4.0 out of 5 stars Very in-depth, invaluable but not for beginners, October 4, 2003

By A Customer

I have started reading this book and I am very impressed. The book is very detailed and full of valuable insights and tips that no doubt come from the extensive experience of the author.

XSLT is covered by many general XML books and there are a few books dedicated to it but when one start to use XSLT for complex real-life application often these books fall short. For instance, many books do not satisfactorily explain how to deal with namespaces, or white space or how to implement recursion.

Some of the examples given in the book are great as well: producing svg, rtf, pdf and documentation for the stylesheet. I also like the fact that the author is aware of XSLT 2.0 (currently a W3C working draft) which is not the case for many others xslt books and the fact that he spends some time covering vendor extensions. Generally I find it to be the most comprehensive reference contained in a single book.

The only downside of this book is that it is catered toward advanced readers. I do not recommend this book for somebody new to XML and XSLT. I think it would be hard to grasp the concepts using only this book as it comes right in the meat of the matter. For beginners I would rather recommend to start with the XSLT book from O'Reilly (ISBN: 0596000537) which is an easier read, to be later complemented by O'Reilly's XSLT coockbook (ISBN: 0596003722) which is also excellent.