A Student's Guide to XSLT

I got this book because I want to use résumé xml (and xslt) so I can generate résumés on the fly for different jobs that I am applying for.At 83 pages it seems dumb to say I'd like a more detailed index, but I would. That said the Table of Contents, is quite detailed.Also an apendex on some open source, XSLT processors would be nice. I am currently using xsltproc on Ubuntu and plan on using Apache™ FOP to generate PDFs of my résumés.

RAPID and to the point for startup XSL 'applications'.Most books on the XSL, XPATH topics lack the ability to quickly provide the needed code examples and explanations to get a person off the ground in minutes instead of hours of droning on-and-on without a clearly designed and thorough example.This book is great for a fast reference to excellent 'code' so you can be working other projects, creating XML databases, and get to the XSL / XPATH transformations without tons of excessive verbiage. Simply stated, instead of toiling with non-working fragments on pages of explanation, this book gets to the point and can be used to quickly work up new transformations to XML with little effort.A must for those of us who work other database and code issues and only need to quickly tackle a small XSL projectd.<end>

This book is a quick and easy introduction to XSLT/XPath. The first half (slightly more than half) of the book features a variety of examples that deals with creating style sheets referenced in XML documents and then opening them in a browser. The second half features various examples using an XSLT processor (Saxon) to transform XML documents into html documents, CSV files, multiple XML files, etc. One fun example is in chapter 8; visualizing XML data using the Google Maps API. I should say I was fairly familiar with XML before reading this book, but not in a web-based context, and I was not familiar with XSLT. The book may have been a bit too basic for me, but that is OK, it is a good start. The book was well organized, straightforward and it had interesting examples.However, as far as I could see there is nowhere to get the files for the examples. I had to type every example by hand, which gets tedious. The good news is that I did not find any typos in the examples, but there were typos in the text. The examples were mostly web and browser related whilst the XML I have been dealing with so far has mostly been related to databases, buffer storage, information exchange between systems, and other communication (not web based). In my opinion the focus of the book was therefore a bit narrow. The author also made some questionable claims such as “XLink is currently of limited usefulness as it hasn’t been fully implemented in many browsers.” Well, I’ve used billion dollar applications implementing XLink that do not use browsers to operate.Overall this is a decent short book featuring good explanations and interesting examples, and I do recommend this book. However, I also feel the book had some shortcomings.

Don't get me wrong, if you're new to XSLT and aren't a strong with computers, this book will help you. It's well written and provides a clear entry into XSLT.However, I did expect a little bit more. The book is essentially self-published, and looks more like a course guide I would buy at the university bookstore for one of my classes. The formatting is basic HTML material printed on 8.5" x 11" pages, and appears as if it's just a printout of a webpage.All in all, it's still a good little book to get your feet wet with XSLT and XPath, but don't expect what some other reviewers call a textbook, because it's not.

I am a beginner with XML/XSLT, and found this text book very useful. The book walks you through a set of great easy to follow examples. The author gives you XSLT example codes along with step by step explanations on how it works, and how to troubleshoot the common errors. You can easily display your XML data in a web browser by using XSLT code examples, query and format you data etc. Great text, I highly recommend it!

Absolute best beginner XSLT book. This is the 3rd book on XSLT I bought and I wish it was the first. Short and very informative. Gives you everything you need to start using it that day. Was able to start coding before I even finished the book.It is NOT exhaustive and does not cover XPath 2.

Well done and easy, clear. Takes you step by step through all aspects of using XSLT and shows examples of how to use it in various situations including styling output. Fast read, easy to learn. You'll know how to create XSLT stylesheets in no time.

This book is written in a clear and understandable way- great for those learning the subject and needing extra guidance. I highly recommend for anyone looking for extra direction.

I'm going to line up with the majority: I found this a good, effective introduction to XSLT. As a university lecturer myself (but a student in XSLT) I can see the experience and thought which has gone into refining and pacing the content. That said, though, I also recognise a thinly-disguised set of course notes, desktop published with next to no page design (lines too long, margins too narrow etc.). It's not an expensive book, but the quality/price ratio could have been better.Two other minor complaints. There's no apparent online code source, so you'll be doing a lot of typing; not such a bad idea, maybe. More unfortunate, given the proportion of students who use Macs, is the almost exclusive focus on Windows. Here the book really needs more up-to-date advice than that it's a "hassle" hardly worth trying!As the three stars say, though, "It's OK", and I'm glad I bought it.