XML: Designing XML Internet Applications

Designing XML Internet ApplicationsAuthors: Michael Leventhal, David Lewis, and Matthew Fuchs
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Designing XML Internet Applications. By Michael Leventhal, David Lewis, and Matthew Fuchs; with contributions from Stuart Culshaw and Gene Kan. The Charles F. Goldfarb Series on Open Information Management. [Subseries:] The Definitive XML Series from Charles F. Goldfarb. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR, [May] 1998. Extent: xxxii + 582 pages, CD-ROM. ISBN: 0-13-616822-1. Price: $44.95 U.S./$63.00 Canada. See also: the main bibliography entry and the Prentice Hall SGML Series Page.
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Volume Description[Provided by the authors.]
Designing XML Internet Applications is divided into five parts.
In the first part we will introduce you to the XML universe. Here you will find a discussion of the role of XML in the internet and a quick-start on the XML recommendation and XML tools. We don't assume prior knowledge of either XML or SGML but our task here is not to provide an extended tutorial or reference on the language syntax. What we do do is develop the perspective of the XML internet application designer and provide any background that is needed to comprehend the subsequent chapters.
The next three parts consist of a series of projects using XML in actual internet applications. Working through the projects the reader will gain concrete experience in the design of XML applications, DTDs, and programming. We also delve into standards related to XML and the internet wherever relevant.
The first project spans five chapters as the construction of several types of components is involved including a bulletin board, forms processing tools, a search engine, and transformation filters.
Most of the work is done in Perl and the approach is less rigorous than that used in subsequent projects. Our intention here is to introduce XML programming in the most simple and "exposed" form possible.
We have chosen to use Perl in this first part for various reasons. It is the closest thing we know of to a lingua franca for internet programmers, it is extremely compact allowing us to construct complete examples in relatively few lines of code, and, most significantly, Perl is the most versatile XML scripting language.
The second project implements SGML/XML email and digs into the topics of entity management, catalogs, MIME, and full- scale SGML/XML parsing. Code is presented in Perl and C++.
Lest the reader think we are Perl bigots the third project plunges us into Java and XML, building an application based on the Document Object Model and making use of a Java XML parser API. Java is the language in which most of the new XML internet infrastructure is being built.
The fifth and final section of the book takes a rigorous, formal look at the role of XML in software architectures and agents based on the paradigm of negotiation.
Full source code for all the projects has been included on the CD-OM as have all the public domain tools used in the book.