If you're a developer working with XML, you know there's a lot to know about XML, and the XML space is evolving almost moment by moment. But you don't need to commit every XML syntax, API, or XSLT transformation to memory; you only need to know where to find it. And if it's a detail that has to do with XML or its companion standards, you'll find it--clear, concise, useful, and well-organized--in the updated third edition of XML in a Nutshell. With XML in a Nutshell beside your keyboard, you'll be able to:

• Quick-reference syntax rules and usage examples for the core XML technologies, including XML, DTDs, Xpath, XSLT, SAX, and DOM
• Develop an understanding of well-formed XML, DTDs, namespaces, Unicode, and W3C XML Schema
• Gain a working knowledge of key technologies used for narrative XML documents such as web pages, books, and articles technologies like XSLT, Xpath, Xlink, Xpointer, CSS, and XSL-FO
• Build data-intensive XML applications
• Understand the tools and APIs necessary to build data-intensive XML applications and process XML documents, including the event-based Simple API for XML (SAX2) and the tree-oriented Document Object Model (DOM)

Elliotte Rusty Harold provides you with 50 practical rules of thumb based on real-world examples and best practices. His engaging writing style is easy to understand and illustrates how you can save development time while improving your XML code. Learn to write XML that is easy to edit, simple to process, and is fully interoperable with other applications and code. Understand how to design and document XML vocabularies so they are both descriptive and extensible. After reading this book, you'll be ready to choose the best tools and APIs for both large-scale and small-scale processing jobs. Elliotte provides you with essential information on building services such as verification, compression, authentication, caching, and content management.

Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) is a powerful technology for transforming XML documents into other useful forms, but it is sometimes considered difficult to learn. Its template-based approach makes it a prime candidate for learning by example, and XSLT examples are often easily repurposed. XSLT 2.0 greatly increases the power and elegance of XSLT but also increases its complexity.

XSLT is a language that lives simultaneously on the fringes and in the mainstream of current software-development technology. While working on the first edition of this project, I often found myself explaining to friends what XSLT was and why it was important enough to spend time writing a whole book about it. These same friends had heard of Java, Perl, and even XML, but not XSLT. I also observed an increasing number of requests for XSLT assistance on XSLT mailing lists and more industry attention in the form of books, articles, and sophisticated XSLT development tools. The XSLT user base is clearly growing daily; however, many software professionals and technology enthusiasts do not understand what it is and why it is important. With the release of new XSLT 2.0 implementations, I hope adoption of XSLT will accelerate, but this is not certain, partly due to competition from XQuery 1.0 and other XML manipulation methodologies. One thing is certain: mastering XSLT 2.0 is a worthwhile endeavor because its use will certainly increase, even if it never explodes. Further, learning XSLT will give you a deeper insight into XML processing even if you favor an alternative solution.

XQuery answers the growing need for a functional XML search and transformation standard. Backed by the full weight of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), XQuery is being extremely well received by the IT community worldwide. The first major XML language that takes advantage of the benefits of strong typing provided by XML Schema, XQuery has the versatility to manipulate both XML and non-XML data and provides a valuable connection between the world of XML and relational databases.

In XQuery from the Experts, select members of the W3C's XML Query working group come together to discuss every facet of XQuery. From Jonathan Robie's introductory "XQuery: A Guided Tour" to Mary Mary Fernández, Jérôme Siméon, and Philip Wadler's "Introduction to the Formal Semantics," XQuery is revealed in a way that both novice programmers and industry experts can appreciate.

Edited by long-time XML expert and programmer Howard Katz, coverage ranges from strictly technical chapters to comparative essays such as Michael Kay's "XQuery, XPath, and XSLT," which explores the common ancestry of all three languages, and Don Chamberlin's "Influences on the Design of XQuery," which details the process behind XQuery's design.