Java and XML, Second Edition

Using a Publishing Framework

Using a good publishing framework like Cocoon doesn’t require any special instruction; it is not a complex application that users must learn to adapt to. In fact, all Cocoon’s uses are based on simple URLs entered into a standard web browser. Generating dynamic HTML from XML, viewing XML transformed into PDF files, and even generating VRML applications from XML is simply a matter of typing the URL to the desired XML file into your browser and watching Cocoon and the power of XML take action.

Viewing XML Converted to HTML

Now that your framework is in place and is correctly handling requests ending in .xml, we begin to see it publish our XML files. Cocoon comes with several sample XML files and associated XSL stylesheets in the project’s samples/ subdirectory. However, you have your own XML and XSL from earlier chapters by now, so let’s transform the XML table of contents for this book (contents.xml) with the XSL stylesheet (JavaXML.html.xsl), both from Chapter 2. Locate where you saved the XML file, and copy it into Cocoon’s document root, webapps/cocoon/. The document refers to the stylesheet XSL/JavaXML.html.xsl. Create the XSL/ directory in your web document root, and copy the stylesheet into that directory. The XML document also references a DTD; you will need to either comment that out, or create a DTD/ directory and copy the JavaXML.dtd file, also from Chapter 2, into that directory.

Once you have the XML document and its stylesheet in place, you ...