Written for Java programmers who want to integrate XML into their systems, this practical, comprehensive guide and reference shows how to process XML documents with the Java programming language. It leads experienced Java developers beyond the basics of XML, allowing them to design sophisticated XML applications and parse complicated documents.

Processing XML with Java™ provides a brief review of XML fundamentals, including XML syntax; DTDs, schemas, and validity; stylesheets; and the XML protocols XML-RPC, SOAP, and RSS. The core of the book comprises in-depth discussions on the key XML APIs Java programmers must use to create and manipulate XML files with Java. These include the Simple API for XML (SAX), the Document Object Model (DOM), and JDOM (a Java native API). In addition, the book covers many useful supplements to these core APIs, including XPath, XSLT, TrAX, and JAXP.

Practical in focus, Processing XML with Java™is filled with over two hundred examples that demonstrate how to accomplish various important tasks related to file formats, data exchange, document transformation, and database integration. You will learn how to read and write XML documents with Java code, convert legacy flat files into XML documents, communicate with network servers that send and receive XML data, and much more. Readers will find detailed coverage of the following:

• How to choose the right API for the job
• Reading documents with SAX
• SAX filters
• Validation in several schema languages
• DOM implementations for Java
• The DOM Traversal Module
• Output from DOM
• Reading and writing XML documents with JDOM
• Searching XML documents with XPath
• Combining XSLT transforms with Java code
• TrAX, the Transformations API for XML
• JAXP, the Java API for XML Processing

In addition, the book includes a convenient quick reference that summarizes the major elements of all the XML APIs discussed. A related Web site, located at http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xmljava/, contains the entire book in electronic format, as well as updates and links referenced in the book.

With thorough coverage of the key XML APIs and a practical, task-oriented approach, Processing XML with Java™ is a valuable resource for all Java programmers who need to work with XML.



Customer Reviews & Comments
It used to be that to get a job as a java programmer, all you typically needed was knowledge of java itself plus some general background in computer science. But today we have a severe high tech slump, and technology has also moved on. The former has caused companies that are still hiring, and those that are picking programmers to retain, to require a broader skill set. One of these has been produced by the latter, XML. It really is shaping up that data serialisation is increasingly in XML format, if that data exists outside a database. So for professional reasons you should learn XML, if you are indeed any type of programmer. For example, Microsoft's .NET revolves around XML, and they don't use java. But it turns out that the coupling between java and XML is tight. The most advanced parsers for XML exist for java. In C++ and C#, the parsers are essentially one step/generation behind. Given this, where do you turn to learn XML? An excellent choice is this book. A voluminous and eloquent exposition of the uses of XML. Harold covers the latest versions of the SAX and DOM parsers, explaining the relative merits. As a java programmer, you should find the idea behind SAX simple. It uses a callback, similar to that in GUIs. Simpler, in fact, because you can only have a single callback. SAX's biggest drawback is that it does not build a tree of the document. DOM addresses this. Harold explains the tradeoffs, and how you can decide which to use. Plus, he describes JDOM, which is DOM-like, but written expressly for java. You should find JDOM far more intuitive than DOM. There is one place where I must differ with the author. He claims that this book is for the experienced java programmer who has already had some XML. I think he is being too conservative; he doesn't want to oversell this book to someone who will not benefit from it. I claim that if you are experienced, by which I mean you have a year or more in java, then you have the intellectual wherewithal to gain, even if you have never seen a stitch of XML.