Ajax: The Definitive Guide

Appendix A. The XML and XSLT You Need to Know

Knowledge of XML is essential if you want to build applications around the Document Object Model (DOM) XML capabilities in the browser instead of just using plain text for all of your Ajax responses. Going right along with XML is XSLT, which was originally thought to work in tandem with XML to produce Ajax results for a client. If you are already acquainted with XML and XSLT, you do not need to read this appendix. If not, you should read on.

The general overview of XML and XSLT given in this appendix should be sufficient to enable you to work with XML documents, transform them, and use them in Ajax applications. For a much more solid grounding in the many details of XML, you should consider these books:

• XML in a Nutshell, Third Edition, by Elliotte Rusty Harold and W. Scott Means (O’Reilly)

• Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML by Elliotte Rusty Harold (Addison-Wesley Professional)

• Learning XML, Second Edition, by Erik T. Ray (O’Reilly)

• XSLT Cookbook, Second Edition, by Sal Mangano (O’Reilly)

• XSLT 2.0 Web Development by Dmitry Kirsanov (Prentice-Hall)

• Learning XSLT by Michael Fitzgerald (O’Reilly)

Another good source of material on XML and XSLT is XML.com (http://www.xml.com).

What Is XML?

XML, the eXtensible Markup Language, is an Internet-friendly format for data and documents, invented by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The word Markup in the term denotes a way to express a document’s structure within the document itself. ...