XSLT Programmer's Reference 2nd Edition

This compact, relevant, updated version reflects recent changes in the XSLT specification and developments in XSLT parsers. The material on tools and implementations has been revised; so too have all the examples. It also includes a new chapter on writing extension functions.

XML has firmly established itself as the universal standard for managing data for the web and is now being implemented on a wide scale.

XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language), a vital companion to XML, is used for two main purposes: to format or style XML data so that it can be displayed in a browser and to transform XML data (XSLT). When you transform an XML document, you manipulate the data into a new structure, for example, re-ordering the data. This enables the same data store to be used in an unlimited number of ways. XSLT is a flexible, customizable, and cross-platform language.

XSLT is a notoriously difficult language to understand, but this book, while being a complete reference to the recommendation, will also give code examples showing how it all ties together and can be effectively employed in a real-world development scenario.

Michael Kay is the author of the best selling XSLT Programmer's Reference. He has spent most of his career as a software designer and systems architect with ICL, the IT services supplier. In the XML world he is known as the developer of the open source Saxon product, the first fully-conformant implementation of the XSLT standard.