XML Companion ¿ 3/e  This fully revised edition of this popular book is now up-to-date and even more comprehensive than before. If you¿re a current or potential XML user looking for just one reference to get you up to speed on XML with clarity, comprehensive coverage and precision, then this book will be your essential and constant companion. Whether you¿re a programmer, analyst or consultant involved in the management, processing, transfer or publication of XML data and documents all your questions will be answered here.  Building on the success of the first and second editions of The XML Companion, Neil Bradley has up-dated this accessible, in-depth reference to cover many of the new supporting standards that have emerged since XML was released in 1998. Apart from the core chapters on the XML standard itself, this book concentrates on related standards developed by the W3C and on the two most popular applications of this technology: document publishing and data exchange.  The XML Companion

• Provides accessible, comprehensive description of each XML feature

• Does not assume experience of HTML or SGML

• Detailed study of the standard is supported by the inclusion of cross-referenced ¿roadmaps¿ of the building blocks that comprise the standard.

• Includes an extensive glossary

• Related standards for cataloguing, processing, linking and styling XML are covered in detail.

 This edition now covers:-

• Xpath

• XML Schema

• SAX 2.0

• DOM 2.0

• XSLT

• XHTML 1.0

• XML Base

• Xlink

• Xpointer

• XML Inclusions

    About the author:-  Neil Bradley is an XML consultant with 15 years practical experience in the field. He is an experienced trainer, a regular speaker at industry events and contributes to specialist magazines and journals. He is author of the Concise SGML Companion and the XSL Companion both published by Addison Wesley.                  

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 23 Ratings

Useful and comprehensive - 2003-04-22
Reviewer Rating:
Bradley's book is a pretty complete guide to XML and related technologies. The main chapters are almost tutorial in style, with plenty of code examples to follow. The end of the book contains a small reference section. The topics covered are XML, XSL, XSLT, DOM, SAX, XPath, Schemas, XLink, XHTML, and CSS. Discussions are for the most part clear and accurate. I have two main complaints about Bradley. First, the prose, while accurate, is often overly verbose. It could be written more concisely and compactly. Second, each chapter is broken into sections, but the sections are not numbered, so it is difficult to locate material in the text. The main advantage is the comprehensive general coverage of XML-related technologies. Buying this one book will arm you with the knowledge to develop XML applications and content, and it will save you money. If you have very specific needs, you may need to supplement Bradley with another more focused text that delves deeper into a particular technology. Also, if you want to see longer applications presented as case studies, you might want a different text. I recommend this book for beginning and intermediate XML users who want broad, general coverage in a single book.

Several reasons for 5 stars - 2005-01-14
Reviewer Rating:
1. Depth and breadth of topics being covered with real application make this a solid reference for XML applications, such as Apache Cocoon 1 & 2 Frameworks. Java is indeed a natural companion to XML.

2. It is not a cookbook of raw XML/XSLT/CSS/XSchema/XLink/XInclude/XPointer, etc... It actually explains the Design behind the implementation leaving one to approach implementation with foresight and focus on planning before one wastes needless hours of frustration during rushed implementations.

3. It is for someone with a solid understanding of MVC (Model/View/Controller) abstraction approaches that are pervasive in OOA/OOD that includes Smalltalk, Objective-C, Java, C++, C#, Javascript, Python, Ruby, etc...

4. It describes XML as a means to be both a boon for turning publishing into an Art of Reuse as well as how XML solidifies many failed attempts of standards that were not able to become language agnostic. XML and all her siblings are that meta bridge.

5. With the XSL Companion those who complained about it being either difficult to grasp or tediously complex will be vindicated and appreciate returning to this book to explain all the questions that surface along the way during any project they become involved in helping solve.

6. Neil is very honest that this book is about wrapping your head around the XML paradigm and not about being a Dictionary of answers to all your XML application(s) needs. It should become clear the reason behind so many XML application standards. There are just so many avenues to address how could they all possibly be expressed in just one book?

Great book for understanding XML - 2006-06-05
Reviewer Rating:
I loved this book. I've got about eight or ten XML books, but this is the one I turn to for my "Why?" questions.

It's not a tutorial or cookbook, but it explains XML logically and historically. I don't sit down at my computer with this book ready to type in stuff. This is the book that I sit down with in my comfortable armchair ready to understand XML in a way that makes sense and sticks with me. It's very readable.

Not for the beginner, but still useful - 2006-05-17
Reviewer Rating:
I bought this book when I was still trying to get my head around XML and found it much more confusing than clarifying. However, many years later, once I had a solid foundation of XML, I pulled this book back out and actually did find it mostly useful. The author covers a lot of minutia that is difficult if not impossible to find elsewhere (he devotes an entire chapter to whitespace issues, for example), and if you really have a need to understand what is going on under the hood, this book can actually serve as a handy reference. Still, I do think the material could have been better presented - chapter 6 discusses "Architectural Forms", for example. I have read and re-read the explanation several times and still cannot fathom what they are or why they would be useful... there are quite a few such topics in the book.

Not a well written book... - 2002-09-12
Reviewer Rating:
...and not for a beginner. Filled with samples and graphs-which somewhat help the extremely confusing writing style. Bradley's style reminds me of the teacher I had when I was 10 years old who found it very easy to go off on a new tangent--and very difficult to be brief, concise or clear.
Fine for a reference, if you already know what you want.

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