book

Perl and XML

by Erik T. Ray, Jason McIntosh

April 2002

Intermediate to advanced

218 pages

6h 12m

English

O'Reilly Media, Inc.

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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

Preface

This book marks the intersection of two essential technologies for the Web and information services. XML, the latest and best markup language for self-describing data, is becoming the generic data packaging format of choice. Perl, which web masters have long relied on to stitch up disparate components and generate dynamic content, is a natural choice for processing XML. The shrink-wrap of the Internet meets the duct tape of the Internet.

More powerful than HTML, yet less demanding than SGML, XML is a perfect solution for many developers. It has the flexibility to encode everything from web pages to legal contracts to books, and the precision to format data for services like SOAP and XML-RPC. It supports world-class standards like Unicode while being backwards-compatible with plain old ASCII. Yet for all its power, XML is surprisingly easy to work with, and many developers consider it a breeze to adapt to their programs.

As the Perl programming language was tailor-made for manipulating text, Perl and XML are perfectly suited for one another. The only question is, “What’s the best way to pair them?” That’s where this book comes in.

Assumptions

This book was written for programmers who are interested in using Perl to process XML documents. We assume that you already know Perl; if not, please pick up O’Reilly’s Learning Perl (or its equivalent) before reading this book. It will save you much frustration and head scratching.

We do not assume that you have much experience with ...