XML has been the biggest buzzword on the Internet community for the past year. But how do you cut through all the hype and actually put it to work? Java revolutionized the programming world by providing a platform-independent programming language. XML takes the revolution a step further with a platform-independent language for interchanging data. Java and XML share many features that are ideal for building web-based enterprise applications, such as platform-independence, extensibility, reusability, and global language (Unicode) support, and both are based on industry standards. Together Java and XML allow enterprises to simplify and lower costs of information sharing and data exchange. Java and XML shows how to put the two together, building real-world applications in which both the code and the data are truly portable. This book covers:

• The basics of XML

• Using standard Java APIs to parse XML

• Designing new document types using DTDs and Schemas

• Writing programs that generate XML data

• Transforming XML into different forms using XSL transformations (XSL/T)

• XML-RPC

• Using a web publishing framework like Apache-Cocoon

This is the first book to cover the most recent versions of the DOM specification (DOM 2), the SAX API (SAX 2) and Sun's Java API for XML.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 58 Ratings

Pretty much a waste of time - 2003-05-16
Reviewer Rating:
Now, after having had this book for about 1 year, and having looked at other sources which explain XML and using XML with Java, do I realize how much of my time this book has wasted.

The author might be a genius, but if you wish to learn XML and it's usage with Java, please take my advise and stay away from this book.

The book is too verbose and the author in the process, to give him the benefit of doubt, forgot to explain the concepts, and then wandered off to his favorite specialized topics such as JDOM and other usages of XML which may be of interest to just a few readers.

Disappointing - 2005-02-04
Reviewer Rating:
This book did not come up to the expectations that were set by some of the other reviewers and by O'Reilly themselves.

I bought Java & XML a couple of years ago. I diligently read the first couple of chapters, but then found it unhelpful and put it aside. To find out what SAX and DOM are you have to wade through lots of inconsequential information, only to discover that SAX allows you to parse an XML document on the fly, but doesn't retain it in memory; whereas DOM keeps the document in memory and allows you to manipulate it. Big deal. I could have worked this out by doing some Google searches.

I am writing this review because I have just picked up my (dusty) copy from the bookshelf in the hope of finding something interesting. I was surprised to see that the first example on SAX actually includes a JTree, even though McLaughlin says to ignore it, it is typical of the book to include something irrelevant and simply confusing. Why doesn't he just use a simple console example? What he doesn't say is that the JTree code is really there to make the example longer, so that there are more pages in the book that justify a higher price. You're not going to spend 45 dollars on a weedly little manual, are you? You want something chunky for your money.

When reading this sort of book, I get the feeling that O' Reilly, and similar technical publishers, put a lot of effort into inflating their publications into bigger manuals with lots of pages. McLaughlin is obviously an expert, but he is constrained by the O'Reilly house style, which is deliberately conversational and longwinded so that while you feel that it is easy reading, they are really just making it more difficult to learn simple concepts. As I said before they also pepper the pages with unnecessary sections of code.

In my opinion, another two examples are XSLT and XSLT "cooktop": both these O'Reilly manuals could have been condensed into one book by just cutting the waffle.

Don't get me wrong, I don't enjoy dry, academic journals but at the same time I just wish that these manuals would get to the point quicker .

Get the second edition, not this one - 2001-08-22
Reviewer Rating:
Readers should note that the second edition will be available in a week or two; you can pre-order it elsewhere on this site (my rating is meaningless by the way... its just the review system insists you give it a rating...). Posted 22nd August 2001.

Best book on Java and XML - 2002-12-12
Reviewer Rating:
One of the first and best books that really showed how to use XML within a Java development context.

hmmm. check out the newer edition - 2001-10-10
Reviewer Rating:
This book was ambitous, overly optimistic, and even a little 'unfocused', if you can believe that about an O'Reilly title. These problems probably stem from the fact that it was written when XML, and especially the Java API's for XML, were very, VERY new.

Check out the 2nd edition. It's actually thinner, and surely much improved. I'll have to borrow one and see if it's worth buying. (and I'm pretty optimistic, as Brett obviously knows his stuff!)

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