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XML in a Nutshell : A Desktop Quick Reference (Nutshell Handbook) (Paperback)

by W. Scott Means (Author), Elliotte Rusty Harold (Author)

4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Continuing in the tradition of the Nutshell series, XML in a Nutshell provides a dense tutorial on its subject, as well as a useful day-to-day reference. While the reader isn't expected to have prior expertise in XML, this book is most effective as an add-on to a more introductory tutorial because of its relatively fast pace.

The authors set out to systematically--and rapidly--cover the basics of XML first, namely the history of the markup language and the various languages and technologies that compose the standard. In this first section, they discuss the basics of XML markup, Document Type Definitions (DTDs), namespaces, and Unicode. From there, the authors move into "narrative-centric documents" in a section that appropriately focuses on the application of XML to books, articles, Web pages and other readable content.

This book definitely presupposes in the reader an aptitude for picking up concepts quickly and for rapidly building cumulative knowledge. Code examples are used--only to illustrate the particular point in question--but not in excess. The book gets into "data-centric" XML, exploring the difference between the object-driven Document Object Model (DOM) and the event-driven Simple API for XML (SAX). However, these areas are a little underpowered and offer a bit less detail about this key area than the reader will expect.

At the core of any Nutshell book is the reference section, and the installment found inside this text is no exception. Here, the XML 1.0 standard, XPath, XSLT, DOM, SAX, and character sets are covered. Some material that is covered earlier in the book--such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)--is not re-articulated, however. XML in a Nutshell is not the only book on XML you should have, but it is definitely one that no XML coder should be without. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

XML history
Document Type Definitions (DTDs)
Namespaces
Internationalization
XML-based data formats
XHTML
XSL
XPath
XLink
XPointer
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
XSL-FO
Document Object Model (DOM)
Simple API for XML (SAX)

Review
'It is truly an amazing book '- Greek TeX Friends Newsletter, August 2001 '...there is the usual thoroughness one associates with O'Reilly publications. The coverage is totally comprehensive, and all the data is displayed in an attractive and consistent format.... It contains all the basics of the XML standard. Serious web developers will find topics ranging from the most basic syntax rules, to the details of document type definition (DTD) creation. For more advanced users, they also include details of Extensible Stylesheet Transformation (XSLT) and the document object model (DOM). MANTEX Information Design

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Product Details

Paperback: 492 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly; 1 edition (January 15, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0596000588
ISBN-13: 978-0596000585
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,108,110 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Look Inside This Book

Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover

Citations (learn more)

5 books cite this book:

Programming ADO.NET by Richard Hundhausen in Front Matter
Database and XML Technologies: Third International XML Database Symposium, XSym 2005, Trondheim, Norway, August 28-29, 2005, Proceedings (Lecture Notes ... Applications, incl. Internet/Web, and HCI) by St�phane Bressan on page 143
The Multimedia Internet (Information Technology: Transmission, Processing and Storage) by Stephen Weinstein in Back Matter
XML for Bioinformatics by Ethan Cerami in Back Matter
XML for Dummies, Third Edition by Ed Tittel on page 341

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Customer Reviews

36 Reviews

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

4.1 out of 5 stars (36 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stranded on an island & allowed one XML book, this is it!, February 3, 2001

By	Sojourner "JL" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Blaise Pascal once wrote "I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter". Writing a book on XML is quite an undertaking. Writing a quick reference that not only provides expert coverage on XML and its associated technologies but does so concisely, practically, and comprehensively is a super human feat! Amazingly, the authors of "XML In A Nutshell" have accomplished just that and it shows.

One of the authors, Elliotte Rusty Harold, is no stranger to the technology. He is an early adopter who has written two previous XML books (and several good Java books) and created a web site devoted to XML (Cafe con Leche).

This book is divided into 4 parts. The first covers the essentials of XML including XML syntax, DTD and namespaces. The second covers 'Narrative Centric Documents' involving XSLT, CSS, XLinks, XPointers and XPath. The third covers 'Data Centric XML, ' involving DOM and SAX. The final part is a quick reference to all the above. Each part contains tutorials that are concisely written and packed with practical examples. Beginners can use it to jump-start their learning experience and experts can use this as a indispensable ready reference.

XML Schema is mentioned but not covered in this book.

Hats off to O'Reilly Associates for producing a professionally attractive, well-designed and portable book. It is comfortable to read and to hold. Stranded on a island and allowed only one XML book, this is it!

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38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good reference, but where was the editor?, February 24, 2001

By	Maurice Reeves "Libertarian" (Perkasie, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As usual, this O'Reilly book makes a good reference into XML and is chock full of information. HOWEVER, as it seems to have been the case lately, this book was not very well edited, almost as if they pushed it through to get published.

Examples:

Page 35: ?, *, + are all listed as allowing zero or one element, where they are actually each unique.

Page 133: The authors show linking in an XSL Stylesheet in an XML Document and they list the type of linked in document as "text/xml" which will NOT produce the desired result. They type should actually be "text/xsl". (this can be a quite frustrating error to debug)

Similar examples are scattered throughout, plus their decision to not even discuss XML Schemas leaves me a bit puzzled, but I knew that when I bought the book so I can complain too much.

If you need a good reference to XML, and you can overlook small errors, then go ahead and purchase the book. If the errors bug you then I suggest you wait for the second edition.

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book if you know what to expect . . ., August 6, 2002

By	Shashank Tanksali (Pembroke Pines, FL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: XML in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

Over the years, I have used several books in the nutshell series and I have always found them to be useful. However if you buy any nutshell book and more specifically the "XML in a nutshell" book with the intention of learning XML from scratch, then you will be disappointed. This book is meant to be a pocket reference for those who know XML and don't want a huge book on their desk.

This book scratches the surface of several XML topics like DTDs,XLink,XPointer,DOM,SAX,CSS etc, but doesn't explore any subject in detail. However one glaring omission is XML schema.

If you are a techie trying to learn XML or an experienced professional looking to enhance your understanding of XML and the related technologies, then Professional XML from Wrox press is a much better bet of your money.

Overall the most useful section of this book is the reference section at the end and is well worth the money if what you want is a good reference book.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars XML in a Nutshell
This is a well-written reference on XML 1.1. Slightly over half the book is tutorial in nature, while the remainder of the book is reference material (on XML, Schemas, XPath,... Read more

Published on June 7, 2005 by njbulitka

3.0 out of 5 stars Specialized reference book for XML with JAVA
This books starts out with a quick explanation and walkthrough or XML 1.0 specification that is pretty good. Read more

Published on June 24, 2004 by C. A. Sines

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
This is the only XML book I have - I skimmed through several and this one was far and away the best. Read more

Published on March 27, 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Much more than good value for money
The authors managed to compress an amazing amount of information in a very small amount of space, without affecting readability. Read more

Published on May 3, 2003 by Foti Massimo

2.0 out of 5 stars bad organization with some typo erros.
I have read part of the book and tried to use it as a reference, but always confused with the bad organization, not to mention some typo errors. Read more

Published on November 30, 2002 by Osama A.O.

2.0 out of 5 stars Worst explanation of XML itself, bad presentation
The first 3 chapters are explained so wage that you really do not get any introduction to XML. No direct benifits of XML are explained. You feel to stop reading this book. Read more

Published on October 17, 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-organized information in a compact format
This book continues the Nutshell tradition of putting a lot of information into a well-written, well organized format. Read more

Published on October 10, 2002 by chrisinbellingham

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Have For ALL Developers
I can't stress to you enough that this is the XML book of all XML books. I am NOT an expert in XML, but with this book, I can fumble my way through an XML application. Read more

Published on October 1, 2002 by Brian Yager

5.0 out of 5 stars A great XML book
This is a great book. Short and to the point. It covers a large amount of subject matter without needing thousands of pages to do it. Read more

Published on September 9, 2002 by chazherr

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful reference
The Nutshell series of books from O'Reilly have a special section of my desk established for them; no other set of books condenses so much information for reference. Read more

Published on August 26, 2002 by Antonio A. Rodriguez

› See all 36 customer reviews...

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