XML Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition
By Robert Eckstein with Michel Casabianca


Unconfirmed error reports are from readers.  They have not yet been 
approved or disproved by the author or editor and represent solely the
opinion of the reader.


This page was updated July 10, 2002


Here's a key to the markup:

        [page-number]: serious technical mistake
        {page-number}: minor technical mistake
        <page-number>: important language/formatting problem
        (page-number): language change or minor formatting problem
        ?page-number?: reader question or request for clarification


UNCONFIRMED errors and comments from readers:



(9)  Example 2  sample.dtd;
using IE 5

The XML page cannot be displayed
Cannot view XML input using style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the
Refresh button, or try again later.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Attribute 'xmlns:OReilly' must be a #FIXED attribute. Line 3, Position 70

<!ATTLIST OReilly:Books xmlns:OReilly CDATA "http://www.oreilly.com">


{12}  Line 8;
The line:
<xsl:output method="html">
is missing the closing slash.


(12)  Example 3 sample.xsl;
using IE 5.0

The XML page cannot be displayed
Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click
the Refresh button, or try again later.

--------------------------------------------------------------

End tag 'xsl:stylesheet' does not match the start tag 'xsl:output'. Line 40, Position
3

</xsl:stylesheet>
--^


{19}  last few paragraphs;
xml:lang values are not defined by ISO-639 at all, but by RFC 1766, which 
has been obsoleted by RFC 3066.
Moreover, ISO-639 now allows for three-letter codes (in ISO-639-2).

The first sentence of the last paragraph, "In addition, ISO-3166 provides 
for nonstandardized languages and language variants." is wrong.  Corrected 
and reworded: "Most language tags in use (whether for languages or for 
'dialects') consist of an ISO-639 two or three letter code plus an optional 
ISO-3166 country code, as described above.  But RFC 3066 also allows for 
tags with other syntaxes."


[57]  1st paragraph;
The example for xsl:for-each uses xsl:process, but xsl:process is
not defined by the book.  A friend of mine says that there is no
such thing as xsl:process, but I'm new to XML, so I don't know about that.
I suspect that the example should use xsl:apply-templates instead.


[57]  line 3;
<li><xsl:process select="title"></li>

1-this is not well formed xml which xslt must be!
2-there is no 'process' element in xslt (this edition [the second]
came out after xslt 1.0 reached general rec. level at W3C).


{57}  <xsl:if> code example, 3rd line;
A better, if not more correct, way to do this example, would be to replace the 3rd line in the code by:

<xsl:if test="not(position()=last())">, </xsl:if>

since last() returns the total number of notes (of which the context node is a part)

Your code example,
  <xsl:if test="not([last()])">, </xsl:if>

gave me this error:
javax.xml.transform.TransformerConfigurationException: Programmer's assertion in getNextStepPos: unknown stepType: 28

when I used it thusly:

<xsl:template match="finding/finding/finding">
  <xsl:value-of select="name" />
  <xsl:if test="not([last()])">, </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

, unless this was an incorrect usage.  If I use this:

<xsl:template match="finding/finding/finding">
  <xsl:value-of select="name" />
  <xsl:if test="not(position()=last())">, </xsl:if>
</xsl:template>

, it works great.



{66}  under heading "lang";
correct "1766" to "3066".


{74}  last item on page;
I believe the path <para[last()]> should be written without the angel brackets!


(76)  2nd paragraph under "Functions" heading;
replace this:

  [...] (optional arguments are followed by a question mark):

with this:

  [...] (optional arguments are shown in brackets):

or something like that.

[137]  3rd paragraph;
<xsl:for-each select="addressbook/address/[starts-with(state, 'M')]">

The above code is from the 'Another Example' paragraph.  You will need to remove the
'/' after the 'address' to remove the error