If you are a Python programmer who wants to incorporate XML into your skill set, this is the book for you. Python has attracted a wide variety of developers, who use it either as glue to connect critical programming tasks together, or as a complete cross-platform application development language. Yet, because it is object-oriented and has powerful text manipulation abilities, Python is an ideal language for manipulating XML. Python & XML gives you a solid foundation for using these two languages together. Loaded with practical examples, this new volume highlights common application tasks, so that you can learn by doing. The book starts with the basics then quickly progresses to complex topics, like transforming XML with XSLT, querying XML with XPath, and working with XML dialects and validation. It also explores the more advanced issues: using Python with SOAP and distributed web services, and using Python to create scalable streams between distributed applications (like databases and web servers). The book provides effective practical applications, while referencing many of the tools involved in XML processing and Python, and highlights cross-platform issues along with tasks relevant to enterprise computing. You will find ample coverage of XML flow analysis and details on ways in which you can transport XML through your network. Whether you are using Python as an application language, or as an administrative or middleware scripting language, you are sure to benefit from this book. If you want to use Python to manipulate XML, this is your guide.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 4 Ratings

Terse, and too many typos! - 2002-01-14
Reviewer Rating:
I'm not very far along in the book, but I don't like what I'm seeing.
The preface purports that the book's audience need not "know anything
about XML." There is very little in the way of explaining XML, however.
The chapter on "Fundamentals" is O'Reilly at its most terse. If you already
understand XML very well, you might think this chapter an excellent
itemizing of the specification. Sadly, most people, I imagine, would be able
to retain little from this.

Regarding the code examples, the explanations hardly illuminate the API.
The code stands as is; and the commentary does only a somewhat decent job
of explaining the larger context. You could always check the documentation
given in the back of the book, but that's hardly as helpful as a good overview
and commentary.

Moreover, and in some ways worse, I have found many typos -- and I am only
as far as the first two examples. These mistakes include missing import
statements, errant capitalization, bad indentation, double underscores ('__')
written as one long underscore. This is unacceptable. I can only hope it is just
this one chapter.

I bought this book because of the topics, and because I figured Python would
be the easiest way to learn XML API's. I am only hoping that the book will
get better, and that I will be able to derive benefit from it. As it stands,
I'm skeptical that I will get my money's worth.

Great coverage with some typos - 2002-02-28
Reviewer Rating:
This book really dvelves into the using XML with Python. The
chapter are well laid out and easy to read. There are some typos
but nothing that you can't fix. There are some problems using the current XSLT processer that ships with PyXml0.7 but you can
still apply the concepts (I used MSXML's XSLT). The best chapter (last one (:-|) ties all the concepts explained into a Web Service like app. that really shows the real strength of XML

Good Coverage of Python XML possibilities - 2002-01-31
Reviewer Rating:
I really liked this book because I was able to quickly start using XML with Python. I tried to use the package docs, but they were often hard to read, and didn't fill me in on the background stuff I needed to know. The examples in this book were easy to understand, and easy to see how to make practical applications from them. I didn't encounter any typos like the other reader did.

A Great Overview of XML - 2009-08-10
Reviewer Rating:
I found the entire book easy to read and understand. I've been programming for a while now, but am new to both Python and XML and this book was at the perfect level for me. The book is very readable and the examples used were both concise and pertinent. The Python code used in the book was easy to follow even though I've only been using Python for a few weeks.

This book is mostly a tutorial on what XML is, how to manipulate XML documents using Python, and how to use XML to move data over the internet via HTTP. It was a very good practical overview of XML in the context of Python. While it wasn't all-encompassing, the book gave you just the right amount of information to get started, without burying you with details that might be better left to more of a reference style book.

I almost gave it just 4 stars only because the chapter on SOAP was quite dated. Since the book was last published when SOAP was in it's infancy, I didn't find that the information provided was quite as useful as it could be. The overview of SOAP was OK, but the sample code seemed to not have the same flow as the rest of the book. That said, if you're looking for information on SOAP specifically, this book may not be your best choice. Interestingly though, the last chapter that ties everything together with a more involved example web application, shows how to do a SOAP-like web service without actually using SOAP - which actually seemed to be a lot simpler in my opinion.

I would have also appreciated a little more coverage of XML Schemas, but after reading the book, I now at least know what to look for. All-in-all though, an excellent book to get you started if you're looking to work with XML documents using Python.

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