For Immediate Release
September 12, 2001
For more information, a review copy, cover art or an interview with
the author, contact:
Kathryn Barrett (707) 829-0515 ext 387 or kathrynb@oreilly.com


"XSLT"--TRANSFORMING DATA FOR THE WEB


Sebastopol, CA--XSLT, Extensible Stylesheet Language for
Transformations, was born from a need to separate content from
presentation on the Web. The problem with HMTL--which is unquestionably
the most widely used markup language--is that most HTML pages have one
goal in mind: the appearance of a document. "Veterans of the markup
industry know that this is definitely not the way to create content,"
explains Doug Tidwell, author of "XSLT" (O'Reilly, US $39.95).
"Separation of content and presentation is a long-established tenet of
the publishing industry; unfortunately, most HTML pages aren't even
close to approaching this ideal." XML (Extensible Markup Language), on
the other hand, represents structured content independent of its
presentation. Because of its flexibility, XML is becoming the language
of choice for sending structured data across the Web, and more and
more, its successful implementation depends on XSLT.

XSLT is a powerful language for transforming XML documents into
something else. "That something else can be an HTML document, another
XML document, a Portable Document Format (PDF) file, a Scalable Vector
Graphics (SVG) file, a Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) file,
Java code, a flat text file, a JPEG file, or most anything you want,"
explains Tidwell. "You write an XSLT stylesheet to define the rules for
transforming an XML document, and the XSLT processor does the work."

As useful as XSLT is, its peculiar characteristics make it difficult to
get started in, and the ability to use advanced techniques depends on a
clear and exact understanding of how XSLT templates work and interact.
In "XSLT," Tidwell gives developers a thorough tutorial and reference
guide to the language. A developer with years of XSLT experience,
Tidwell explains XSLT by building from the basics to the more complex
but powerful possibilities of XSLT.

"'XSLT' contains more examples than any other source available," says
Tidwell. "I filled it full of examples for people who have work to do.
My assumption is not that you're learning XSLT because you want to be
an expert, but learning it because you have a job to do."

"This book is for anyone who has structured data they need to share,"
Tidwell adds. "With the growth of pervasive devices like cell phones,
computers, handhelds, etc., people are going to have to take more and
more information and serve it up in different ways. That's what XSLT
was meant to do. It gives you the power to convert your data into a lot
of formats that weren't previously possible."

"XSLT" includes practical, real-world examples that show how to apply
XSLT stylesheets to XML data. The resulting transformations run the
gamut of XML applications including sound files, HTML, WML, graphics
(SVG), and Braille. Readers of "XSLT" will get a thorough understanding
of XSLT and XPath and their relationship to other web standards, along
with recommendations for a honed toolkit in an open, platform-neutral,
standards-based environment.

An article by the author, "Extending XSLT to Encrypt XML on the Fly,"
may be found at:  http://web.oreilly.com/news/xslt_0801.html

Chapter 5, "Creating Links and Cross-References," is available free
online at:  http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/xslt/chapter/ch05.html

For more information about the book, including Table of Contents,
index, author bio, and samples, see:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/xslt/index.html

For a cover graphic in jpeg format, go to:
ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/graphics/book_covers/hi-res/0596000537.jpg 

XSLT
By Doug Tidwell
ISBN 0-596-00053-7, 460 pages, $39.95 (US)
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
http://www.oreilly.com

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