Java XML Programmer's Reference

Java and XML are intricately related to each other and its importance is growing in building J2EE solutions. For any professional developer who is aspiring to build Enterprise Applications, knowledge of XML is a must. But more important than that is to be able to use the Java API's for XML. In a period when information about these is scattered and difficult to gather, this book has all you require to get started with Java XML in one place. The layout is perfect, the material is flawless and uptodate. The API's have been supplemented by useful examples where required which show exactly what can be done. Its a must buy for anyone. I never repented owning a copy. And my recommendation is - Go get it!

I found it to be a very comprehensive and complete book on XML. One of the biggest problems with XML related books in general is that i have to refer to 2-3 books to solve a 'business problem' as the books seem to be focused on one or two aspects of XML. With this book though the authors seems to have taken the approach of solving real life business problems with XML going into just the right level of details and providing great examples, I really liked the business case study and the Apache chapter. In short, it was just what i was looking for as a person who is learning xml and most importantly trying to use it to solve real world problems.

This book is an excellent reference for the Java XML API's. It is up to date on SAX 2 and DOM/DOM extensions. It also gives a good intro to many recent developments like SOAP and IBM WebServices Tools. An advantage of reading such a book is that it makes you familiar with many of the good features of API's - which otherwise I would have never bothered to look up. The chapter on JAXP is particularly well presented. I liked the case study in Chapters 12-15 which highlight techniques for configuring, querying , storing and transmitting XML - these can be put to use straight away. On the flip side, I would have liked to see more examples in each chapter on the usage of API's. I would have also liked some more focus on XSLT. Ant has been used extensively - and at first I found this a little disconcerting as I had not used Ant earlier.