book

Perl and XML

by Erik T. Ray, Jason McIntosh

April 2002

Intermediate to advanced

218 pages

6h 12m

English

O'Reilly Media, Inc.

Read now

Unlock full access

AssumptionsHow This Book Is OrganizedResourcesThe perl-xml Mailing ListCPANFont ConventionsHow to Contact UsAcknowledgments
1.1. Why Use Perl with XML?1.2. XML Is Simple with XML::Simple1.3. XML Processors1.4. A Myriad of Modules1.5. Keep in Mind...1.6. XML Gotchas
2.1. A Brief History of XML2.2. Markup, Elements, and Structure2.3. Namespaces2.4. Spacing2.5. Entities2.6. Unicode, Character Sets, and Encodings2.7. The XML Declaration2.8. Processing Instructions and Other Markup2.9. Free-Form XML and Well-Formed Documents2.10. Declaring Elements and Attributes2.11. Schemas2.11.1. Other Schema Strategies2.12. Transformations
3.1. XML Parsers3.1.1. Example (of What Not to Do): A Well-Formedness Checker3.2. XML::Parser3.2.1. Example: Well-Formedness Checker Revisited3.2.2. Parsing Styles3.3. Stream-Based Versus Tree-Based Processing3.4. Putting Parsers to Work3.5. XML::LibXML3.6. XML::XPath3.7. Document Validation3.7.1. DTDs3.7.2. Schemas3.8. XML::Writer3.8.1. Other Methods of Output3.9. Character Sets and Encodings3.9.1. Unicode, Perl, and XML3.9.2. Unicode Encodings3.9.2.1. UTF-83.9.2.2. UTF-163.9.2.3. UTF-323.9.3. Other Encodings3.9.3.1. Core Perl support3.9.4. Encoding Conversion3.9.4.1. iconv and Text::Iconv3.9.4.2. Unicode::String3.9.4.3. Byte order marks
4.1. Working with Streams4.2. Events and Handlers4.3. The Parser as Commodity4.4. Stream Applications4.5. XML::PYX4.6. XML::Parser
5.1. SAX Event Handlers5.2. DTD Handlers5.3. External Entity Resolution5.4. Drivers for Non-XML Sources5.5. A Handler Base Class5.6. XML::Handler::YAWriter as a Base Handler Class5.7. XML::SAX: The Second Generation5.7.1. XML::SAX::ParserFactory5.7.2. SAX2 Handler Interface5.7.2.1. Content event handlers5.7.2.2. Entity resolver5.7.2.3. Lexical event handlers5.7.2.4. Error event handlers and catching exceptions5.7.3. SAX2 Parser Interface5.7.4. Example: A Driver5.7.5. Installing Your Own Parser
6.1. XML Trees6.2. XML::Simple6.3. XML::Parser’s Tree Mode6.4. XML::SimpleObject6.5. XML::TreeBuilder6.6. XML::Grove
7.1. DOM and Perl7.2. DOM Class Interface Reference7.2.1. Document7.2.1.1. Properties7.2.1.2. Methods7.2.2. DocumentFragment7.2.3. DocumentType7.2.3.1. Properties7.2.4. Node7.2.4.1. Properties7.2.4.2. Methods7.2.5. NodeList7.2.5.1. Properties7.2.5.2. Methods7.2.6. NamedNodeMap7.2.6.1. Properties7.2.6.2. Methods7.2.7. CharacterData7.2.7.1. Properties7.2.7.2. Methods7.2.8. Element7.2.8.1. Properties7.2.8.2. Methods7.2.9. Attr7.2.9.1. Properties7.2.10. Text7.2.10.1. Methods7.2.11. CDATASection7.2.12. ProcessingInstruction7.2.12.1. Properties7.2.13. Comment7.2.14. EntityReference7.2.15. Entity7.2.15.1. Properties7.2.16. Notation7.2.16.1. Properties7.3. XML::DOM7.4. XML::LibXML

8.1. Tree Climbers8.2. XPath8.3. XSLT8.4. Optimized Tree Processing
9.1. XML Modules9.2. XML::RSS9.2.1. Introduction to RSS9.2.2. Using XML::RSS9.2.2.1. Parsing9.2.2.2. Inheriting from XML::Parser9.2.3. The Object Model9.2.4. Input: User or File9.2.5. Off-the-Cuff Output9.3. XML Programming Tools9.3.1. XML::Generator::DBI9.3.2. Further Ruminations on DBI and SAX9.4. SOAP::Lite9.4.1. First Example: A Temperature Converter9.4.2. Second Example: An ISBN Lookup Engine
10.1. Perl and XML Namespaces10.2. Subclassing10.2.1. Subclassing Example: XML::ComicsML10.3. Converting XML to HTML with XSLT10.3.1. Example: Apache::DocBook10.4. A Comics Index

Content preview from Perl and XML

Chapter 1. Perl and XML

Perl is a mature but eccentric programming language that is tailor-made for text manipulation. XML is a fiery young upstart of a text-based markup language used for web content, document processing, web services, or any situation in which you need to structure information flexibly. This book is the story of the first few years of their sometimes rocky (but ultimately happy) romance.

Why Use Perl with XML?

First and foremost, Perl is ideal for crunching text. It has filehandles, “here” docs, string manipulation, and regular expressions built into its syntax. Anyone who has ever written code to manipulate strings in a low-level language like C and then tried to do the same thing in Perl has no trouble telling you which environment is easier for text processing. XML is text at its core, so Perl is uniquely well suited to work with it.

Furthermore, starting with Version 5.6, Perl has been getting friendly with Unicode-flavored character encodings, especially UTF-8, which is important for XML processing. You’ll read more about character encoding in Chapter 3.

Second, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) is a multimirrored heap of modules free for the taking. You could say that it takes a village to make a program; anyone who undertakes a programming project in Perl should check the public warehouse of packaged solutions and building blocks to save time and effort. Why write your own parser when CPAN has plenty of parsers to download, all tested and chock ...